Translated Texts for Historians

lamblichus:

On the Pythagorean Life

Translated with notes and introduction by
GILLIAN CLARK

Liverpool
University •
Press

c

I-1-

Translated Texts for Historians

This series is designed to meet the needs of students of ancient and
medieval history and of others who wish to broaden their study by reading
source material but whose knowledge of Latin or Greek is not sufficient to
allow them to do so in the original language. Many important Late
Imperial and Dark Age texts are currently unavailable in translation, and
it is hoped that TTH will help fill this gap and complement the secondary
literature in English which already exists. The series relates principally to
the period 300-800 AD and will include Late Imperial, Greek, Byzantine
and Syriac texts as well as source books illustrating a particular period or
theme. Each volume is a self-contained scholarly translation with an
introductory essay on the text and its author and notes indicating major
problems of interpretation, including textual difficulties.

Editorial Committee

Sebastian Brock, Oriental Institute, University of Oxford

Averil Cameron, King’s College London

Henry Chadwick, Peterhouse, Cambridge

John Davies, University of Liverpool

Carlotta Dionisotti, King’s College London

Robert Markus, University of Nottingham

John Matthews, Queen’s College, University of Oxford

Raymond Van Dam, University of Michigan

Ian Wood, University of Leeds

General Editors

Gillian Clark, University of Liverpool
Margaret Gibson, University of Liverpool
Christa Mee, Birkenhead

Cover illustration: coin from Samos, mid-third century AD, showing Pythagoras.

Already published

Volume 1

Gregory of Tours: Life of the Fathers

Translated with an introduction by EDWARD JAMES
163 pp.. 1983 (reprinted 1986). ISBN 0 85323 IIS X

Volume 2

The Emperor Julian: Panegyric and Polemic

Claudius Mamertinus, John Chrysostom, Ephrem the Syrian

Edited by SAMUEL N.C. LIEU

133 pp.. 1986. 2nd edition 1989. ISBN 0 85323 376 4

Volume 3

Pacatus: Panegyric to the Emperor Theodosius

Translated with an introduction by C.E.V. NIXON

122 pp.. 1987. ISBN 0 85323 076 5

Volume 4

Gregory of Tours: Glory of the Martyrs

Translated with an introduction by RAYMOND VAN DAM

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Volume 5

Gregory of Tours: Glory of the Confessors

Translated with an introduction by RAYMOND VAN DAM

127 pp.. 1988. ISBN 0 85323 226 I

Volume 6

The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis to AD 715)

Translated with an introduction by RAYMOND DAVIS
175 pp.. 1989. ISBN 0 85323 216 4

Volume 7

Chronicon Paschale 284-628 AD

Translated with notes and introduction by
MICHAEL WHITBY and MARY WHITBY

280 pp.. 1989. ISBN 0 85323 096 X

Volume 8

lamblichus: On the Pythagorean Life

Translated with notes and introduction by GILLIAN CLARK

144 pp.. 1989. ISBN 0 85323 326 8

Translated Texts for Historians
Volume 8

lamblichus:

On the Pythagorean Life

Translated with notes and introduction by
GILLIAN CLARK

Liverpool

University

Press

HH

First published 1989 by
Liverpool University Press
PO Box 147, Liverpool, L69 3BX

Copyright © 1989 Gillian Clark

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced in any form without permission in writing
from the publishers, except by a reviewer in
connection with a review for inclusion in a magazine
or newspaper.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

lamblichus, of Chalas, ca. 250 - ca. 325

On the Pythagorean life — (Translated texts for
historians. Greek series; v.8).

1. Greek phil osophy, ancient period.
Pythagoreanism

I. Title II. Clark, Gillian III. Series IV. De vita
Pythagorica. English
182’.2

ISBN 0 85323 326 8

Text processed by
Liverpool Classical Monthly

Printed in Great Britain at the
University Press, Cambridge

CONTENTS

Abbreviations
Map 1

Map 2 viii

Introduction

Text 1

Bibliography

Index of people and places 117

ABBREVIATIONS

(These are standard abbreviations for periodicals and works of
reference. For abbreviations of book-titles, see the Bibliography.)

ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der Romischen

Welt, ed.H.Temporini (1972-)

GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies

JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies

JRS Journal of Roman Studies

JTS Journal of Theological Studies

LSJ Liddell-Scott-Jones, Greek-English Lexicon

PLRE Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, ed.

A. H. M. Jones (Cambridge 1971)

REA Revue des Etudes Anciennes

REG Revue des Etudes Grecques

RhM Rheinisches Museum

TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association

INTRODUCTION

Why should lamblichus, a Platonist philosopher of the
fourth century AD, write about Pythagoras, a pre-Platonic
philosopher or sage or religious genius of the sixth century B.C.?
It was neither an easy nor an obvious task. Nobody was sure
what exactly Pythagoras had taught, let alone what (if anything)
he had written. Nor is it likely that there was a widespread
desire to know more about him. A few philosophers in the early
centuries AD were counted as Pythagorean, because of their
concern with number as an organising principle of the universe,
and a few people were “Pythagorean” in the popular sense; they
were vegetarian, or they believed in reincarnation. But there was
no major Pythagorean revival, and any need for information had
recently been met by lamblichus’s senior contemporary
Porphyry. Porphyry’s Life of Pythagoras was not a special study,
but part of a four-book history of philosophy from Homer to
Plato. lamblichus’s book is also, conventionally, known as the
Life of Pythagoras (hence the standard abbreviation VP, from d e
vita Pythagorica), but that is a misleading translation. He uses,
but does not duplicate. Porphyry. His title is On the Pythagorean
Life, and his book was the introduction of a ten-volume sequence
on Pythagorean philosophy.'

(i)

The Pythagorean life, lamblichus tells us, is organised so as
to follow God (VP 86, 137). Pythagorean lifestyle is a discipline
for body and soul. Pythagoras himself, as lamblichus presents
him, is proof that the gods are concerned for human life: they
send his godlike soul to be embodied so that he may enlighten
humanity. Earnest commitment to the philosophic life, as
manifested by Pythagoras and his followers, can make human
souls worthy of being raised to the level of the divine. The

' O’Meara chs.1-2 discusses Pythagoreans of the C2-3 AD and I.’s work On
Pythagoreanism (see n.9 below). For I.’s use of Porph 3 Ty, see n.ll below.

X

Hellenic religious tradition, which Pythagoras assimilates and
develops, offers divinely inspired teaching, profound religious
experience, personal holiness and communal love. lamblichus does
not say explicitly that in all these respects Graeco-Roman religion
can meet the Christian challenge, but the pagan-Christian debate
of the third and fourth centuries is the necessary background to his
book.

Throughout lamblichus’s lifetime Christianity was making
converts, even in the philosophical schools and among his own
friends. His biography is not entirely secure, but there is no
serious reason to doubt the main outlines.^ Born in Syria in the
mid-third century AD, of a landowning family, he was educated
probably at the Syrian capital, Antioch, and at Alexandria. Both
cities were centres of Christian theology as well as Graeco-
Roman philosophy. Anatolius, one of lamblichus’s teachers,
probably became bishop of Laodicea: his work, and perhaps
lamblichus’s too, was known to Eusebius of Caesarea (in
Palestine) who was engaged in the presentation of Christian
doctrines and refutation of pagan claims. lamblichus also
worked, in Rome or Sicily, with another Syrian: Porphyry, the
pupil of Plotinus. Porphyry was more actively involved in the
resistance to Christianity. His book Against the Christians,
written in the late third or early fourth century, was later
banned (unsuccessfully) by the emperor Constantine.

lamblichus had returned to teach in Syria probably before
the outbreak of what Christians knew as the Great Persecution,
ordered by the emperor Diocletian in 303 and pursued with great

2 For what follows see PLRE 1.450-1, based on J. Bidez, “Le philosophe
Jamblique et son ecole”, REG 32(1919) 29^0; modified by Alan Cameron,
“The date of I.’s birth”, Hermes 96(1968)374-6, and by T. D. Barnes, “A
correspondent of 1.” GRBS 19 (1978) 99-106. J. Vanderspoel, “I. at Daphne”,
GRBS 29 (1988) 83-6, offers suggestions on the place where I. taught. On
Anatolius, see OMeara 23, and T. D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius
(1981) 168; on Porphyry, T. D. Barnes, “Porphyry against the Christians:
date Euid attribution of the fragments”, JTS ns24 (1973) 424-42, and A.
Meredith in ANRW II.23.2 1119-49, esp.1125-37. See further Fowden,
esp.40-1.

XI

bitterness, especially in the Middle East, for the next decade. He
was in Syria in 313,when Constantine became ruler of the
western empire and declared his allegiance to Christianity, and
may not have lived to see Constantine conquer the eastern
empire in 324, and summon the Council of Nicaea. His favourite
pupil Sopater waited for him to die before openly joining
Constantine’s court; Sopater was there by 326/7.

The Christian challenge, officially sanctioned by
Constantine, forced a new presentation of Graeco-Roman
religious thinking. So far as we know, lamblichus met the
challenge not by seeking to refute Christianity but by
reaffirming his own tradition. But after his death he became the
theologian of a conscious pagan revival under Constantine’s
nephew Julian, known to Christians as the Apostate.^ Julian
never knew lamblichus: born in 322, and a secret convert to
paganism, he discovered lamblichus’s work perhaps at the
university of Athens, and admired it immensely, going so far as
to rank lamblichus with Plato as a philosophical theologian
(Julian, or. 4.146a). Even in the fourth century many people
would have disagreed, and in the twentieth century Julian’s
assessment has been dismissed as the enthusiasm of one crank
for another — just like that of lamblichus for Pythagoras. But
both enthusiasms deserve attention.

It is easy to see why people have thought poorly of
lamblichus. He is a notoriously unclear writer. His respectful
biographer Eunapius, only three generations of teachers away,
remarks on what he made of a much more straightforward
subject than Pythagoras, the life of his brilliant friend Alypius.
“The text was obscured by its style: it was overshadowed by a
thick cloud, and not because the facts were unclear, for he had a
long account by Alypius for information. Moreover he made no
mention of philosophical works.” (Eunapius 460.) Many scholars
working on the Life of Pythagoras have read that with feeling.
Moreover lamblichus practised theurgy, the ritual invocation of

3 JH esp. 181-9.

xii

divine presences, which many people from Plotinus on saw as
dangerously close to magic. So lamblichus was typecast as an
exponent of the Higher Nonsense, clouding Hellenic clarity with
Syrian religiosity. It is only in the last twenty years that work on
later Platonism and lamblichus’s place in it, and on theurgy and
Graeco-Roman religious thinking generally, has made Julian’s
enthusiasm believable.'*

Julian became sole emperor in 361, and appears to have
made a shrewd assessment of the problems facing a pagan
revival after nearly fifty years of state-subsidised Christianity.
Graeco-Roman paganism had an ancient tradition, drawing on
the glamorous wisdom of the eastern cultures. Its local civic cults
united the simple faithful, and its mysteries provided for other
religious aspirations. It could cite divinely inspired texts: Homer,
Hesiod, Plato, Aristotle, the Orphic Hymns and the “Chaldaean
oracles”. But there was nothing comparable to Christian ethical
and theological instruction, offered to all comers at weekly
meetings: ethics and theology were for the elite who could afford
to spend time with a philosopher. They were not linked with the
civic cults, even though the gods were believed to be angered by
failure to maintain moral standards. The emperor Maximin
Daia, during the Great Persecution, had decided that what
paganism lacked was a visible, integrated, spiritually
authoritative priesthood. Julian, in his brief reign (361-3), went
further, proposing basic religious teaching and a budget for

There is a classic denunciation of I. in J. GefFcken, The Last Days of
Graeco-Roman paganism (ET 1978) 126-36. The gradual rise in I.’s
reputation may be seen in CH (Lloyd, 1967), Larsen (1972), Wallis
(1972), Dillon (1973) and Gersh (1978). For the revaluation of theurgy,
contrast E.R.Dodds, “Theurgy and its relation to Neoplatonism”, JRS
37(1947) 55-69, with Gregory Shaw, “Theurgy: rituals of unification in
the Neoplatonism of 1.” T-aditio 41(1985)1-28; and see A. H. Armstrong,
“I. and Egypt”, Les itudes philosophiques 2-3 (1987)179-88. See also on
138 below.

xiii

charitable activities to make the pagan priesthoods an exact
parallel to the Christian clergy. As emperor, he could supply the
budget: it was the writings of lamblichus which were to train the
priests.5

(ii)

What, then, would the priests learn from lamblichus? The
aim of all the Platonist philosophers was that of Plato and
Aristotle: the union of the philosopher’s mind with the mind of
God. Platonists held that reality is not the changing world which
we see and touch, but the absolute values and unchanging being
we discover by the exercise of reason. This reality is not itself
God, who is beyond all our categories of thought, but God gives it
being by thinking it. Human reason, the power to make sense of
the world and to understand what reality is, is the aspect of
human beings which is closest to the divine. (It would be
misleading to make a distinction here between “mind” and
“soul”.) The more we engage in the activity of reason, the more
we love and desire wisdom, the closer we are to God. Conversely,
the more we involve ourselves in this transient material world,
the further we are from God. The philosopher thus becomes a
religious leader, not just an expert in argument.

We must, then, train ourselves to ignore disproportionate
and irrelevant desires, and to meet only the genuine needs of our
bodies and our communities. This is askesis, the Greek word for
“training”. Christian asceticism of the third and fourth centuries
tended to move from salutary self-discipline to extremes of self¬
torment which only increased preoccupation with the body;
philosophical asceticism aimed to regulate diet, sleep and
lifestyle generally so as to free the mind for the hard intellectual
work which prepares it to contemplate reality. Both the work and

5 Chaldaean oracles: see on 151 below. Pagan clergy: R.M.Grant, “The
religion of Maximin Daia”, in Christianity, Judaism and other Graeco-
Roman cults, ed. J.Neusner (1975), vol.4.143-66; Julian, letter 84, ed J.Bidez
(1924) — with the caution that Gregory of Nazianzus (Or.4.111) and
Sozomen (EH 5.16'' may well exaggerate Julian’s wish to emulate the
Christian clergy.

XIV

the contemplation are called theoria, a wrord which has no single
equivalent in English (particularly not “theory” in its modem sense
of a hypothesis which awaits disproof).®

lamblichus held (e.g. On the Mysteries 5.26) that the gods help
us on our way: they respond to prayer and make supernatural
guidance available to those who practise theurgy. This was a
technique of ritual invocation, which the followers of lamblichus
held to be divinely inspired. The name “theurgy” was taken to mean
“divine works” (in Greek, theia erga or theon ergo). lamblichus
taught that the beings who appeared were not the gods themselves,
but daimones, lesser spirits who give expression to that which, in
the gods, is ineffable. The gods, being many, are themselves lesser
than the One God, though immeasurably superior to mortals.
Daimones, and below them heroes, bridge the gulf between divine
and human.

lamblichus disagreed with those who held that human souls
are of the same nature as divine souls. He held that there are
different classes of souls, and that human souls are not only by
nature the lowest class, but are also contaminated by their mortal
bodies. Theurgy, with the loving concern of the gods, purifies the
soul from this contamination, and liberates it from the bonds of fate
which control the material world. lamblichus expoimded theurgy in
his commentary (now lost) on the Chaldaean Oracles, and in O n
the Mysteries, in which he responds to Porphyry’s challenge that
theurgy attempts to manipulate the gods, and that it abandons
reason for superstition and dogmatism. He does not explicitly
discuss it in On the Pythagorean Life (but see on 138): it was not a
suitable teaching for an introductory text. Instead, he insists on the
need for physical, moral and spiritual purification, for hard
intellectual work in a range of disciplines based on mathematics,
and for faith in the real theological content of traditional cults,
divination, and supernatural happenings. Pythagoras both

® See 58-9 (and note) and 159-60 on Platonism; 68-70 and note for the
ascetic life. I.’s own development of Platonism is discussed in CH
(Lloyd), Wallis, Dillon and O’Meara. 'Theoria: Dorothy Emmet, “Theoria
and the way of life” JTS nsl7 (1966) 38-52.

XV

demonstrates the gods’ concern to help us and exemplifies the way a
human being should live and study.

(iii)

So, without claiming that lamblichus wrote On the Pythagorean
Life as a primer for pagan clergy, we can read it as an example of the
moral and spiritual training which Julian wanted priests to have. The
philosopher Olympiodorus (On Plato’s Phaedo, 123.3 Norvin) said
lamblichus was one of those whose chief concern was hieratike, the
priestly task of mediating between gods and humans, rather than
philosophy. lamblichus would not have accepted this distinction, any
more than the distinction between philosophy and theology: he wrote
to train students of philosophy, who would become able to understand
and transmit divine wisdom. When they had read the life of
Pythagoras, and become convinced that Pythagoras was a divine soul
sent to reveal the truth and teach human beings how to live, they were
to continue with the Protrepticus, “Exhortation to Philosophy”, which
offers Pythagorean sayings and philosophers side by side with extracts
from Plato and Aristotle. Thus encouraged, they advanced to a series
of hi^ly technical works on aspects of Pythagorean mathematics: that
is, mathematics understood as the study of the structure of reality.
These studies prepared them for lamblichus’s commentaries on
selected texts of Plato and Aristotle, and on the Chaldaean Oracles, in
which he expounded human understanding of God.®

Daimones: On the Mysteries 1.5.16-17. Souls: Steel part I, Finamore ch.2.
Fate (heimarmene): see on 219,

® See the Bibliography for the Protrepticus. Two other Pythagorean works of I.
survive: On General Mathematical Science (ed. N.Festa, Ifeubner 1891
repr.1975) and The “Arithmetical Introduction’’ of Nicomachos (ed.H.Hstelli,
Tfeubner 1894 repr.1975). The titles of five others are in the contents-list of the
manuscript (Florence, Laurentian Library 86.3, known as F) from which our
copies of the extant texts derive. These titles are: Arithmetic in Physics,
Arithmetic in Ethics, Arithmetic in Theology, Pythagorean Geometry and
Pythagorean Music. A book on pyhagorean Astronomy, promised at the end of
the book on Nicomachos, would bring the total to ten, the Pythagorean perfect
number. (TMeara part I, esp.91-101, discusses the pyhagoream books overall
and their relation to I.’s commentaries on F*lato and Aristotle, which are
discussed in detail by Larsen; fragments of the Plato commentaries are
collected by Ihllon.

We do not know how soon in his working life lamblichus
decided that Pythagoras was the ideal philosopher, nor to what
extent he and his students followed the Pythagorean lifestyle he
describes. It is unlikely that they observed a five-year silence for
novices, or held their property in common: these features of
P 5 dhagorean communities are probably inspirational, just as the
“primitive communism” of the earliest Christian church in
Jerusalem was used to inspire charitable giving by property
owners. lamblichus himself, as described in late antique
tradition, has much in common with his own Pjdhagoras. He too
was known as “the divine”; he performed fewer miracles than
Pythagoras, but his students were prepared to believe that when
praying in solitude (but observed by slaves) he levitated and
became golden in colour. He once, reluctantly, caused some
spirits to appear, and he was aware of the recent presence of
death. He also taught secret “truer doctrines”, which his
followers were reluctant to reveal to a Eunapius aged all of
twenty. (Eunapius 458-9, 461.) But there were other late antique
philosophers who were “holy men” in the same way, and
lamblichus is distinctively Pythagorean in his approach to
mathematics rather than in his supernatural gifts. ^

On the Pythagorean Life is chiefly concerned with lifestyle
and human relationships, and lamblichus’s students could have
practised most of what he preached. Here again, one did not
have to be Pythagorean to approve of a disciplined and
temperate way of life, mostly vegetarian and teetotal; avoidance
of careless speech; training of memory; awareness of bonds with
fellow-creatures and with gods, and willingness to accept the
obligations these impose. lamblichus’s treatment of relationships
between the sexes does deserve special notice. Most ancient
philosophy deals with women’s lives as an afterthought, briefly

® Christian “communism” compared with Pythagorean: Luke T.Johnson,
Sharing Possessions (1986). For the philosopher as “holy man” see
Fowden, esp.36, and Cox ch.2; for I.’s main concerns in Pythagoreanism,
O’Meara 210-5.

xvii

noting that educated women can manifest virtue in their
domestic setting, and registering disagreement with Plato’s
radical proposal (always known as “wives and children in
common”) for extracting the most able women from domestic life.
This is, in part, because so few women were serious students of
philosophy, and those mostly wives or daughters (or, in the school
of Epicurus, mistresses) of male philosophers. Plotinus, Porphyry
and lamblichus all knew women of this kind, but it was very rare
for a woman to make an acknowledged contribution to
philosophy.

Pythagoreanism not only remembered the names of more
women than other schools did (though still only seventeen
women as against two hundred and eighteen men, in the list
with which lamblichus ends): some of them were credited with
philosophical treatises of which fragments survive. One, ascribed
to Theano, deals with the metaphysical status of number,
another, ascribed to Aesara, with the organisation of human
nature. The others, ascribed to Theano, Periktione, Phintys and
Myia, are concerned with domestic virtue. We need not dismiss
these works as attempts, by men or collusive women, to keep
women in their place. They set out to show that traditional
female concern for a well-run household, healthy upbringing of
children, tactful handling of husbands, personal modesty and
frugality, are important manifestations of the harmony of the
cosmos.io

Pythagoras’s speech to the women of Kroton, as lamblichus
presents it (VP 54-7), is unusually aware of what is morally
significant in women’s daily lives. Pythagoras thinks they will
see the importance of making and taking offerings to the gods
with one’s own hands, and of refusing to be preoccupied with
appearance and expensive clothes: he actually praises them for
the natural justice displayed in their informal, unwitnessed
loans of clothes and jewels, the only possessions indisputably

Tfexts ascribed to Pythagorean women are translated and discussed in
A History of Women Philosophers ed. Mary Ellen Waithe, vol.l (1987)
chs.1-4.

XVUl

theirs. Moreover, he emphasises — at the women’s request — the
obligation of husbands to be faithful to their wives (VP 132). It is not
unusual for ancient philosophers to point out that men demand
chastity of (some) women, but should — being male — be able to
control sexual desire more easily than women can. It is imusual to
present marriage as a religious commitment, the wife being like a
suppliant at her husband’s hearth, and to argue that the husband’s
neglect of his wife may drive her into adultery (VP 48)

(iv)

Students of women in antiquity would very much like to
know when these speeches were composed, and how far back we
can trace a set of attitudes which have been assigned on the one
hand to the fourth century BC or earlier, and on the other to
Christian influence in the second or third century AD. This is
one instance of a general problem about lamblichus and
P 3 d,hagorean tradition.

All information about philosophers before Plato depends on
reports by later philosophers, who of course have their own
concerns. For Pythagoras, the question is complicated precisely
because there was a “Pythagorean Life”, a lifestyle with major
social and political implications, which was authorised by what
“ipse dixit”, “the Master said”. What had the Master said?

Most scholars in the ancient world agreed that Pythagoras
had left no writings (see on VP 90), that his followers had
maintained an esoteric oral tradition, and that the tradition had
faded out in the fourth century BC when the Pythagoreans had
left South Italy. But lamblichus, like Porphyry a little before him
and Diogenes Laertius earlier in the third century AD, could
have drawn on a very wide range of texts and interpretations.
The question is whether he did.

A scatter of comment survives even from the fifth century
BC, but the main lines of debate were established in the fourth
century BC. Plato’s pupils (Aristotle, Speusippos, Xenokrates)
discussed what exactly Pythagoras taught about the relationship
of number to God and to the material world, and what, if

XIX

anything, Plato owed him. In the next generation (Aristoxenos,
Dikaiarchos, Herakleides of Pontus) the debate was more
political: was Pythagoras an activist or a contemplative, did he
train oligarchs to despise the people, was he a fraud? Some saw
him as an archaic religious genius to be followed in simple faith,
others as a rigorous modern intellectual who insisted on the
higher mathematics. Then there was the question of
Pythagorean influence on the politics of South Italy, which
interested the Sicilian historian Timaeus.

None of this fourth-century material survives intact, though
it can sometimes be traced in later writing. The tradition was
complicated, from the third to the first centuries BC, by
“pseudepigrapha”, works ascribed to Pythagoras himself or to
famous followers, all presenting the Pythagoreanism their
authors wanted to see. Then, in the first and second centuries
AD, attempts were made to harmonise Pythagoras and Plato in
what are now called Neop 3 d,hagorean writings. lamblichus cites
two of these authors, both of the second century AD: the
mathematician Nicomachos of Gerasa (Jerash), and the wonder¬
worker Apollonius of Tyana, who claimed to rival the powers of
Pythagoras. It is a moot point whether he read anybody else, or
whether he got most of his material (including learned references
to earlier authors) from Porph 3 n-y. n

The tradition about P. is extensively discussed by de Vogel, who thinks
authentic early tradition survived; Philip, who is sceptical; and Burkert LS,
who remarks (p.l09) that every item of information about P. is contradicted
somewhere in the tradition. The basic articles on sources are by E.Rohde,
RhM 26 (1871) 554-76 and 27 (1872) 23-61: he argues that I. derived his
material from Nicomachos and Apollonius. This is challenged by Philip in
TAPA 90 (1959) 185-94, with bibliography of earlier discussion, on the grounds
that Nicomachos is not known to have written a life of P, and that I.’s basic
structure, content and purpose are very close to Porphyry’s (the overall effect
is different because I. adds ch.26, on music, from Nicomachos, and his own
compilation of virtues 134-247). For Nicomachos see O’Meara 14-23, for
ApoUonius E.Bowie in ANRW II.16.2 1652-99, esp.1671-2. Porphyry’s Life of
Pythagoras is ed. and tr. by E. des Places (see Bibliography), and there is an
English version in Gods and Heroes: spiritual biographies in antiquity
ed.M.Hadas and M.Smith (1965). “Neopythagorean” writing is discussed
by Dillon MP ch. 7.

XX

Source-criticism, the painstaking attempt to distinguish
sources and different levels of the tradition, has tried to tell us what
lamblichus does not. The results are disputed. lamblichus believed,
hke other philosophers of late antiquity, that the great philosophers
teach the same fundamental truths, and that apparent
disagreements can be reconciled .12 This is not the approach of a
critical historian, and such people wish that it had not been
lamblichus who wrote what has proved to be the most extensive
siirviving account of Pythagoreanism. He does not, as a rule, name
sources; he does not distinguish his own interpretations from earlier
tradition; he is unclear and sometimes contradictory; he repeats
material, sometimes for paragraphs at a time. Some scholars have
been exasperated enough to conclude that lamblichus was
hopelessly muddle-headed, or that he died leaving a mass of notes
which someone else edited badly. These are unnecessarily severe
judgements: the defects of the Life (from our point of view) are not
peculiar to lamblichus. It is only the repetitions which are, I think,
unparalleled, and they are partly to be explained by the structure
lamblichus uses. His account of Pythagoras’s life includes moral
comment, as is usual in ancient biography, but he then groups
together material to demonstrate specific virtues. Repetitions are
inevitable, and lamblichus may have accepted them as an aid to
memory — or even welcomed them as a proof that all virtues are
one.i3

(v)

The standard text of the Life is by L.Deubner, B. G. Teubner
Verlag Stuttgart 1937 (revised by U. Klein, 1975).It is followed here,
with the publisher’s permission, with a few divergences which I
have noted when, in my judgement, the question is important to
TTH readers. Deubner’s edition is learned, but difficult to use, as he
has no space to explain his readings and references.^^Some of the

12 H. J. Blumenthal, Phronesis 21(1976)72-9.

13 I owe the suggestion on the unity of the virtues to Anne Sheppard.

14 Deubner discusses his readings in the Sitzungsberichte der kOniglichen
preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaft, phiL-hist. klasse, Berlin 1935, 612-
90 and 824-7, but his concerns are mainly philological.

XXI

literature on lamblichus refers to pages and lines in the Deubner-
Klein text; some uses chapter-numbers or, more recently, paragraph
numbers. I have included in the text both chapter and paragraph
numbers, as well as the chapter headings which Deubner prints
separately. My own notes refer throughout to paragraph numbers.

This translation is offered because none known to me gave
readers enough help in understanding what lamblichus is talking
about, and it is a long job to find out. The classic English version, by
Thomas Taylor “the Platonist” (1818), has some notes; the German
version by M.Albrecht (1963) has brief and sensible notes; the
“Krotoniate speeches” (VP 47-57) are translated, with detailed
notes, by de Vogel; I found all these helpful.i^ But the greatest help
was given by Dr.Anne Sheppard, of Royal Holloway and Bedford
New College, London, who found time to read and comment on both
text and notes. I am most grateful to her.

Dr.Andrew Barker, of Warwick University, saved me from
several errors on musicology, and kindly allowed me to see his own
draft of ch.26, which will appear in volume II of his Greek Musical
Writings. Dr. D.R.Dicks, and Professor H.A.Hine of St.Andrews,
helped with the astronomy in 31. Professor D.J.O’Meara, of
Fribourg, sent me some important material from his Pythagoras
Revived before its publication in 1989. My colleagues in Liverpool,
especially Henry Blumenthal and Noreen Fox, have been pressed
into service on questions ranging from metaphysics to lice (see on
184; I owe the reference to Professor Peter Wiseman of Exeter). My
teaching in Manchester helped to set lamblichus in his theological
context. Margaret Gibson and Christa Mee have shown their usual
benevolent efficiency. The camera ready copy was produced by
Liverpool Classical Monthly. The publication was made possible by
a generous grant from the Wolfson Foundation.

15 Taylor’s translation was reprinted, in a limited edition, by
J.M.Watkins (London 1965). A revision of his version, by K.S.Guthrie, is
included in The Pythagorean Sourcebook, ed.David R.Fideler (1987): this
has to be used with caution for any scholarly purpose. I have not seen
the Italian version by L.Montoneri (1973) noted in O’Meara 242.

lAMBLICHUS: ON THE PYTHAGOREAN LIFE

1 Preface. The philosophy of Pythagoras. Preliminary invocation
of the gods. The usefulness and difficulty of the undertaking.

(1) All right-minded people, embarking on any study of
philosophy, invoke a god. This is especially fitting for the philosophy
which takes its name from the divine Pythagoras (a title well
deserved), since it was originally handed down from Ihe gods and can
be understood only with the gods’ help. Moreover, its beauty and
grandeur surpass the human capacity to grasp it all at once: only by
approaching quietly, little by little, under the guidance of a
benevolent god, can one appropriate a little. (2) Let us, then, for all
these reasons, invoke the gods to guide us, entrust ourselves and our
discussion to them, and follow where they lead. The school has long
been neglected, hidden fi'om view by unfamiliar doctrines and secret
symbols, obscured by misleading forgeries, impeded by many other
such difficulties — let us disregard all that. Sufficient for us is the
will of the gods, which makes it possible to tackle problems even
more insoluble than these. And after the gods we shall take as our
guide the founder and father of the divine philosophy, first saying a
little about his ancestry and country.

2 Pythagoras’ family, country, upbringing and education; his
travels abroad, return home and subsequent departure for Italy; a
general account of life as he led it.

(3) Ankaios, founder of Same in Kephallenia, is said to have

1-2 I.’s opening recalls Plato’s Timaeus, a fundamental text for Platonist
philosophers: Timaeus, traditionally a “Pythagorean visitor", invokes the god
(27c) before beginning his cosmological discourse. The combination of careful
study and divine guidance, exemplified in the Life (and stated at 31) is
characteristic of I. (see Introduction).

2 Pythagoreanism was not wholly neglected in the early centuries AD: see
O’Meara ch.l (with bibliography). But there is no evidence for Pythagorean
brotherhoods after the C4 BC diaspora (see 252-3, and 29-30n). Symbols: 82-6
and note, 103-5. Forgeries: known as pseudepigrapha, works assigned to
known Pythagoreans (cf.l98) from the C3 BC on; fi:'agments are collected by
Thesleff 1965, and discussed by Thesleff and Burkert in Entretiens Hardt 18
(1971), Pseudepigrapha I, ed.K.von Fritz.

2

been a descendant of Zeus (whether it was some outstanding quality or
greatness of soul which brought him this reputation) surpassing the
other Kephallenians in intellect and thought. The Delphic oracle told
him to assemble a colony from Kephallenia, Arcadia and Thessaly,
with additional members from Athens, Epidaurus and Chalcis. He was
to lead all these to settle in an island known, from the excellence of its
soil, as Darkleaf, and was to call the city Samos, after Same in
Kephallenia.

(4) The oracle went like this:

Ankaios, colonise the sea-washed isle
Called Samos, not Sam6: its name is Leafy.

Samian cults and sacrifices, transferred from the places from
which most of the men came, demonstrate that the colonies came from
the places I have named; and so do the ties of kinship and alliance
made the Samians. They say that Mnesarchos and Pythais, the
parents of Ifythagoras, were of the house and family of Ankaios the
colonist. (5) Such is the high birth ascribed to Pythagoras by his fellow-
citizens; but one of the Samian poets says he was the son of Apollo:

3-4 Samian foundation-l^ends; Graham Shipley, A History ofSarrtos 800-300 BC
(1987). Kephallenia is one of the Ionian Islands, off the coast of NW Greece.

5-8 Versions of P.’s human ancestry are discussed by Philip 185-7. Herakleides of
Pontus, a student of Aristotle, said that P. had been Aethalides, son of the god
Hermes who conducts mortals to the afterlife, and who had given him the ^ of
retaining memory through deadi. Hermes was also the god of words, and thus of
persuasive speakers and of priests (cfJ. (M the Mysteries 1.1, and 12n below). But
Apollo, patron of the Muses (45,170,264) and communicator to mortals of the will
of Zeus, is the inspiration of poets and philosophers, and is especiedly suitable for P
His cult-title Pythios (found at Kroton, 50 and 261) hoirours him as god of the
Delphic orade, where his priestess the pythia spoke truth in gnomic form (105,
161); the name P^hagoras can, by andent etymological methods, mean “spoken by
the pythia” or “speaking like the pythia” (DL 8.21). Apollo was also musician,
purifier and healer (cf.64,68,208) and was identified with Helios, the Sun, focus of
much late antique piety (JH148-53). I.’s philosophy does not allow a god to beget a
human being: the divine is separate firm the material world. But it does allow for a
pure soul which descends to the material world, without being contaminated or
losing its connection with the divine (cf Rato,P/iaecirtts 248c, and OMeara 37-9), to
help with the “preservation, purification and perfection” of this world. Such a soul
has an appropriate physical home (e.g. 5, 9-10, 15-16 for beauty, serenity and
effortless ease, and 71 for P.’s assessment of students); the resultant “holy man“ has
exceptional awareness both of events still hidden fiom others (36,142) and of the

3

Pythagoras, borne to Zeus-beloved Apollo
By Pythais, the fairest of the Samians.

I must explain how this stoiy came to prevail. Mnesarchos the Samian
was in Delphi on a business trip, with his wife, who was already
pregnant but did not know it He consulted the Pythia about his voyage
to Syria. The oracle replied that his voyage would be most satisfying
and profitable, and that his wife was already pr^;nant and would give
birth to a child surpassing all others in beauty and wisdom, who would
be of the greatest benefit to the human race in all aspects of life. (6)
Mnesarchos reckoned that the god would not have told him, unasked,
about a child, unless there was indeed to be some exceptional and god-
given superiority in him. So he promptly changed his wife’s name from
Parthenis to Ifythais, because of the birth and the prophetess. (7) When
she gave birth, at Sidon in Phoenicia, he called his son Pythagoras,
because the diild had been foretold by the Pythia. So we must reject the
theory of Epimenides, Eudoxos and Xenokrates that Apollo had
intercourse at that time with Parthenis, made her pregnant (which she
was not before) and told her of it throu^ the prophetess. (8) But no-one
who takes account of this birth, and of the range of Pythagoras’ wisdom,
could doubt that the soul of Pythagoras was sent to humankind from
Apollo’s retinue, and was Apollo’s companion or still more intimately
linked with him. So much, then, for the birth of Pythagoras.

(9) Mnesarchos returned from Syria to Samos with great profits

workings of the universe (31,66), and inspires awe (Fowden 33-8). I.’s students saw
him as one such. But I. does not deny that P. was a theophany of ^x)llo (30, 91-2,
134r6,14(13>. C3ox ch.2 argues for deliberate ambiguity ^ut the divine on earth.
Of those who took the traditional line that P. was literally “son of
Apollo’’Epimenides (135-6, 222; Vatai 35-6) was a £16 BC s^; Eudoxos a brilliant
C4 mathematician, pupiil of Archytas (for whom see 127n); Xenokrates a successor
of Plato as head of the Academy, who visited Sicily and wrote on P. (DL 4.13, Dillon
MP 22.39).

9 DL 8.1 says Mnesarchos was a ^m-engraver; see Nancy Demand, Phronesis
18(1973)91-6. The travels and stumes are designed to let P. absorb all forms of
traditional wisdom (158-9) and need not be historical. Rreophylos links him to the
“sons of Homer”who were authorities on the recitation of Homer’s poetry. For
Pytiiagorean exegesis of Homer, who was also among the sacred texts of late
anticjue philosophy, see Lamberton ^31-43. Hierekydes (184,252) was a C6 BC
sage, tr^tionally the first prose-writer on nature and the gods, who shares some
{jrediction-stories with P. (KRS 50-71, Philip 188-9, West chs.1-2).

4

and extensive resources. He built a temple to Apollo with a dedication
to Apollo P3d;hios, and gave his son a many-sided education in
the most important subjects. He took him to Kreophylos, to
Pherekydes of Syros and to almost all those outstanding in
religious matters, undertaking to have him thoroughly and
adequately taught, so far as was possible, about what concerns
the gods. Pythagoras grew up surpassing in beauty all persons
known to history, and in good fortune most worthy of a god. (10)
After his father’s death he continued to grow in earnestness and
self-control, and while still a very young man, full of courtesy
and modesty, he was well thought of even by the eldest citizens.
Everyone turned to look on seeing him or hearing his voice, and
anyone he looked at was struck with admiration, so it was quite
understandable that most people were convinced he was the son
of a god. Fortified by these beliefs about him, by his education
from infancy and by his godlike appearance, he made still
greater efforts to show himself worthy of his privileges. He
regulated his life by worship, study and a well-chosen regime: his
soul was in balance and his body controlled, his speech and
action showed an inimitable serenity and calm; no anger,
mockery, envy, aggression or any other perturbation or rash
impulse, took hold of him. It was as if a benevolent spirit had
come to stay in Samos.

(11) Before he was quite adult his fame had reached the
sages Thales at Miletos and Bias at Priene, and the

11 Thales (KRS II) and Anaximander (ib.III) are traditionally the earliest
presocratic philosophers, working in the first half of the C6 BC. Bias counts rather
as a sage (44^ 83; AilJBum, The Lyric Age Of Greece (1960) 207-9). The “long-haired
lad” cC30: young men of Ionian Greek descent marked their adulthood (aged 16-18)
by cutting their long hair as an offering to Apollo; but the stoiy is probably
transferred fiwm P.’s namesake the boxer (DL 8.47-8; see 21 -5n) and does not {^ve
that P. was c.l8 in the mid 530s, when Polykrates established control. See Shipley
(o.c. 3-4n) ch.4 for the chronology of Polykrates, and on the suggestion that an
earlier Polykrates ruled c.570-40 BC. There is in fact no secure chronology of P.’s
life. The C2 BC chronographer Apollodorus equated his acme or “peak”
(traditionally, age 40) with Sie year at which Polykrates’s tyranny was at its height,
532 BC. Thfls may r^t, and may come Sum a good source, Aristoxenos (see
233n). Even if it is not, we have no better guess than c.530 for P.’s eventual
departure for Italy (see 33n), when on I.’s internal chronology (19) he was 56!

5

neighbouring cities too. “The long-haired lad in Samos” became a
catch-phrase, as people in many cities talked about the young
man, sang his praises, and treated him like a god. When he was
about eighteen the tyranny of Polykrates was beginning to
gather strength. He foresaw where it would lead, and how much
it would hinder his purpose and the love of learning which
mattered to him above all. So he left by night, undetected, with
one Hermodamas surnamed “the Kreophylian” and said to
descend from the Kreophylos who was Homer’s host and became
his friend and teacher in everything. With him, then, Pythagoras
travelled to see Pherekydes, Anaximander the natural
philosopher, and Thales at Miletos. (12) He spent time with each
in turn, talking with them to such effect that they all took him to
their hearts, astonished at his natural ability, and shared their
thoughts with him. Thales in particular received him with joy.
He was amazed at the difference between Pythagoras and other
young men, which was even greater than the report which had
gone before him. He shared with Pythagoras such learning as he
could, then, blaming his old age and weakness, urged him to sail
to Egypt and consult especially the priests at Memphis and
Diospolis. He himself, he said, had been furnished by them with
what gave him his popular reputation for wisdom. But he had
not been blessed with such advantages of natural endowment
and training as he could see in Pythagoras, so from all this he
foretold that if Pythagoras associated with the priests he had
indicated, he would become the most godlike of mortals,
surpassing all others in wisdom.

12 Egypt: Diospolis (“City of Zeus”, Egyptian Thebes) housed the sanctuary of
Zeus Ammon. Greek indebtedness to Egyptian religious tradition, vividly
attested in Herodotus II (and Plato, Tlmaeus 22a and 24bc), was renewed in
late antiquity (see Fowden). I.’s dispute with Porphyry about theurgy, On The
Mysteries (Of Egypt) is in the persona of the Egyptian priest Abaramon,
speaking for the subordinate to whom Porphyry addressed his Letter lb
Anebo; and a much-revered collection of religious writings from Eg)q)t was
ascribed to the Egyptian god Thoth, hellenised as Hermes Trismegistus -
hence the Hermetic Corpus. See A-J Festugifere, La Rivilation d’Hermes
Trismigiste, 4 vols 1944-54; Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: a
historical approach to the late pagan mind (1987).

6

3 Pythagoras’ voyage to Phoenicia and studies there; his
subsequent visit to Egypt.

(13) Thales had helped him in many ways, especially in
making good use of time. For this reason he had renounced wine,
meat, and (even earlier) large meals, and had adjusted to light
and digestible food. So he needed little sleep, and achieved
alertness, clarity of soul, and perfect and unshakable health of
body. Then he sailed on to Sidon, aware that it was his
birthplace, and correctly supposing that crossing to Egypt would
be easier from there. (14) In Sidon he met the descendants of
Mochos the natural philosopher and prophet, and the other
Phoenician hierophants, and was initiated into all the rites
peculiar to Byblos, 'lyre and other districts of Syria. He did not,
as one might unthinkingly suppose, undergo this experience
from superstition, but far more from a passionate desire for
knowledge, and as a precaution lest something worth learning
should elude him by being kept secret in the mysteries or rituals
of the gods. Besides, he had learnt that the Syrian rites were
offshoots of those of Egypt, and hoped to share, in Egypt, in
mysteries of a purer form, more beautiful and more divine.
Awestruck, as his teacher Thales had promised, he crossed
without delay to Eg 3 q)t, conveyed by Egyptian seamen who had
made a timely landing on the shore below Mount Carmel in
Phoenicia, where Pythagoras had been spending most of his time
alone in the sanctuary. They were glad to take him on board,
hoping to exploit his youthful beauty and get a good price if they
sold him. (15) But on the voyage he behaved with his habitual
self-control and decorum, and they became better disposed to

14 Syria: homeland of I., who was born at Chalcis and returned to teach
probably at Apamea (see Introduction note 2), and of Porphyry
(originally Malchus of Tyre). Moch<» (according to Strabo 16.757) lived
before the Trojan war and originated the theory of atoms: Dillon MP143
thinks the name may be a version of Moses. It is odd that I. does not
include Jewish wisdom (see A.Momigliano, Mien Wisdom (1975) ch.4),
unless he saw it as Babylonian or Chaldaean: Porphjfry (.Life Of P.W)
has P. learn Hebrew dream-interpretation. Other sources take P. to
Arabia and India (Philip 189-91).

7

him. They saw something superhuman in the lad’s self-
discipline, and remembered how they had seen him, just as they
landed, coming down from the summit of Mount Carmel (which
they knew to be the most sacred of the mountains, and forbidden
to ordinary people), descending at leisure, without turning back,
unimpeded by precipice or rock-face. He had stood by the boat,
said only “Are you bound for Egypt?” and when they agreed had
come on board and sat down where he would be least in the way
of nautical tasks. (16) Throughout the voyage — three days and
two nights — he had remained in the same position. He had not
eaten or drunk or slept, unless he had dozed briefly, unobserved,
where he sat, secure and undisturbed. Moreover, to their
surprise, the journey had been straight, continuous and direct,
as though some god were present. So, putting all this together,
they concluded that there really was a divine spirit travelling
with them from Syria to Egypt, and they completed the voyage
with extreme reverence. Their language and behaviour to each
other and to him was more decorous than usual, until they
beached the boat on the shore of Egypt — a landing blessed by
fortune and wholly untroubled by waves. (17) There he
disembarked, and all of them respectfully lifted him out, passed
him from one to another and seated him where the sand was
entirely clean. They built an improvised altar before him, on
which they scattered such fruit as they had, as a kind of first-
fruits of the cargo. Then they set sail for their destination. His
body was out of condition from his long fast, so he did not oppose
the landing or the sailors’ lifting and handling him; and when
they left he did not long hold back from the fruits which lay
before him. He ate what he needed to restore his strength, and
reached the neighbouring villages safely, maintaining
throughout his accustomed serenity.

16 “Divine spirit”: in Greek, daimon theios (cf.30). See D^tienne,
Daimon, for earlier Pythagorean usage; for later antiquity, Frederick
E.Brenck S.J. in ANEW II.16.3 pp.2094-8.1, ranks daimones below gods
(and archangels and angels) but above heroes and humans (On The
Mysteries 1.5.16-17): see further Finamore ch.2.

8

4 His studies in Egypt, subsequent visit to Babylon and
meeting with the magi; his return to Samos.

(18) From there he visited all the sanctuaries, making detailed
investigations with the utmost zeal. The priests and prophets he
met responded with admiration and affection, and he learned
from them most diligently all that they had to teach. He
neglected no doctrine valued in his time, no man renowned for
understanding, no rite honoured in any region, no place where
he expected to find some wonder. So he visited all the priests,
profiting from each one’s particular wisdom. (19) He spent
twenty-two years in the sacred places of Egypt, studying
astronomy and geometry, and being initiated — but not just on
impulse or as the occasion offered — into all the rites of the gods,
until he was captured by the expedition of Kambyses and taken
to Babylon. There he spent time with the Magi, to their mutual
rejoicing, learning what was holy among them, acquiring
perfected knowledge of the worship of the gods and reaching the
heights of their mathematics and music and other disciplines. He
spent twelve more years with them, and returned to Samos, aged
by now about fifty-six.

5 His studies in Samos on his return, and remarkable skill in
educating one who shared his name; his visits to the Greeks and
the discipline he practised on Samos.

(20) Some of the elders recognised him, and admired him as
much as ever: they thought him more beautiful, wiser, and more
godlike. His country publicly requested him to benefit them all
by sharing his ideas. He made no objection, and tried to set out
his teaching in symbolic form, exactly in the way he had been

18 “doctrine” translates akousma: see 82-6n.

19 Kambyses’s expedition was 525 BC. I.’s narrative brings P. into
contact with many famous people (Thales, Epimenides, Polykrates,
Empedokles amongst others) who cannot all fit into a possible lifetime.
Babylonian astronomy and mathematics, including “Pythagoras’
theorem”, influenced Greek mathematics in the C5 BC - not necessarily
via the Pythagoreans (Burkert LS IV.l, VI.l).

20 “symbolic”: see 82-6n.

9

trained in Egypt, even though the Samians did not much care for
this method and did not give him the appropriate attention. (21)
Nobody joined him or showed any serious desire for the
teachings he was making every effort to establish among the
Greeks. He felt no contempt or scorn for Samos, since it was his
country, but he wanted his countrymen at least to taste the
beauty of his doctrines, if not by their own choice then by a well-
devised plan. So he kept his eye on a gifted and well-coordinated
ball-player at the gymnasium, one of those who were athletic and
muscular but lacked financial resources, reckoning that this man
would be easy to persuade by the offer of a generous subsidy
without trouble to himself. He called the young man over after
his bath, and promised to keep him supplied with funds to
maintain his athletic training, if he would learn — in
instalments, painlessly, consistently, so as not to be
overburdened — some teachings which he himself had learnt
from foreigners in his youth, but which were already escaping
him through the forgetfulness of old age. (22) The young man
accepted, and persevered in the hope of maintenance, and
Pythagoras set out to instil in him arithmetic and geometry. He
demonstrated every point on a drawing-board, and paid the
young man three obols per figure (geometrical figure, that is) in
return for his trouble. He did this for some considerable time,
introducing him to study with great enthusiasm and excellent
method, still paying three obols for each figure learnt. (23) But
when the young man, led down the right path, had some grasp of
excellence and of delight and progress in learning, and
Pythagoras saw what was happening, that he would not of his
own choice abandon his studies — indeed that nothing could
keep him from them — he pretended that he was poor and could
not afford the three obols. (24) The young man said “I can learn,
and receive your teachings, without that”, and Pythagoras

21-5 The gymnasium, hallmark of Hellenic culture, was an obvious place for
philosophers to recruit students from the governing elite (37, 245). P. the
athlete (DL 8.12-13, 47) won an Olympic victory in boxing (in 588 BC,
another date which cannot fit) by using new techniques.

10

retorted “But I cannot afford the necessities of life even for myself,
and when one has to work for one’s daily needs and food it is quite
wrong to be distracted by timewasting things like drawing-boards”.
The young man, reluctant to lose the thread of his studies, said “I
will provide for you in future as you have done for me I will pay you
back three obols per figure”. (25) He was now so taken by
Pythagoras’ teaching that he was the only Samian to leave with
him. His name was Pythagoras too, but his father was Eratokles.
He wrote the books on massage, and on replacing the dried-fig diet
for athletes with a meat diet — these are wrongly ascribed to
Pythagoras son of Mnesarchos. About this time, it is said,
Pythagoras aroused great admiration at Delos, where he had gone
to visit the so-called “bloodless” altar of Apollo Genetor, and to
worship him. From there he visited all the oracles, and stayed in
Crete and Sparta because of their laws. After study and
examination of all these, he returned home to investigate what he
had as yet neglected. (26) First he built a lecture-room in the city,
still called “Pythagoras’ semicircle”, where the Samians now
discuss public affairs: they think it proper to make their
investigation of what is right, just and expedient in the place
founded by one who gave his attention to all these. (27) Outside the
city he took over a cave for his own philosophical work, and there
he spent most of the night, as well as the day, in the pursuit of
useful learning, with the same idea as Minos son of Zeus. He was
quite different from those who later made use of his teachings: they
prided themselves on a little learning, but he perfected his
knowledge of heavenly matters, using the whole of arithmetic and
geometry in his demonstrations.

6 His reasons for moving to Italy and his sojourn there; a
general view of Pythagoras’ character and philosophy.

26 Apollo Genetor (35) was offered only “fruits of the earth”: for his cult,
see DL 8.13, and D6tienne GA 46-7. P.’s respect for the laws of Crete and
Sparta parallels that of Plato in the Laws.

27 Minos king of Crete retired every nine years to a cave, and emerged
with laws which, he said, Zeus had given him (Valerius Maximus
1.2.ext.l).

11

(28) But he deserves yet more admiration for what he did
next. His philosophy had already made great advances; all
Greece admired him and all the best people, those most devoted
to wisdom, came to Samos on his account, wanting to share in
the education he gave. His fellow Samians dragged him into
every embassy and made him share in all their civic duties. He
realised that if he stayed in Samos, obedient to his country’s
laws, it would be hard for him to do philosophy; and all the
earlier philosophers had continued their careers abroad. So,
taking all this into account, and wishing to avoid political
business (or, some say, objecting to the contempt for education
shown by those who then lived on Samos), he left for Italy,
resolved to take as his homeland a country fertile in people who
were well-disposed to learning. (29) On his first visit, to the
famous city of Kroton, he made many disciples [it is reported
that he had there six hundred people who were not only inspired
to study his philosophy, but actually became “coenobites”
according to his instructions. (30) These were the students of
philosophy: the majority were listeners, whom the Pythagoreans
call “acousmatics” (hearers)]. In just one lecture, they say, the
very first which Pythagoras gave to the assembled populace on
landing alone in Italy, more than two thousand people were so
powerfully attracted by his words that they never went home,
but with their wives and children built a huge Auditorium, and

29^0 I follow Deubner in thinking the passage in [ ] misplaced, thou^ it can
make sense (Minar p.29-30) if the 600 are one section of the 2000: see on 80.
“Coenobites”, Greek koinobioi is rare in non-Christian literature, and there may be
conscious rivalry with Christian monasticism as it developed in the late C3 AD. For
the parallels, especially with Athanasius, Life Of Antony, see A-J Festugiere, EPG
443-61. Cox 52-4 thinks there is no delib^te pstraDel, but see her ch.6 for the Li/e
in the context of pagan challenge to Christianity. Burkert SD points out that
Fythagoreanism, as described by I., is the dosest non-Christian parallel to the
Christian church^, in terms of lifestyle, organisation and authority. Philip 138-46
suspects simple back-projection of Christian patterns; but J.S.Morrison, CQ ns
6(1956) 150-1 argues for an archaic Greek male brotherhood, as in the “hiesses” of
Crete and Sparta. For Hypeiboiean Apollo, see on 91-3. Greater Greece see 166n.
Sprits in the moon, D6tienne Daimon 140-67: the moon rules time and these
spirits direct the material, “sublunary” world, which is bound by the laws of the
universe (see 219n). For svdblunaiy daimones in I., Dillon ANRW p.901.

12

founded what everyone calls “Greater Greece”. They took their
laws and ordinances from Pythagoras as if they were divine
commands, and did nothing except by them, and they continued
in harmony with the whole group of students. The people who
lived nearby praised them and blessed their good fortune. They
had their property in common, as Pythagoras had told them, and
from then on they counted him among the gods, as a good and
kindly spirit. Some called him Apollo Pythios, some Hyperborean
Apollo, some Apollo Healer (Paian), some said he was one of the
spirits who live in the moon; some said one, some another, of the
Ol 5 nnpians, who had appeared in human form to the people of
that time for the benefit and amendment of mortal life, and to
grant mortal nature the saving spark of happiness and
philosophy. No greater good has ever come, or ever will come, as
a gift from the gods. So, even now, the saying “the longhair from
Samos” means something worthy of great respect. (31) Aristotle,
in his The Philosophy of Pythagoras, says that the Pythagoreans
make a distinction as follows, guarding it among their most
secret teachings: among rational beings there are gods, and
humans, and beings like Pythagoras. This was a perfectly
reasonable belief about him, since through him there came to be
a true understanding, according with reality, of gods and heroes
and spirits and the universe, the various movements of the
spheres and stars, eclipses and eastward motion and anomalies,
eccentrics and epicycles — everything in the universe, heaven
and earth and the beings between, visible and invisible. This
understanding in no way conflicted with what can be seen or can
be grasped by the intellect. Rather, it established among the
Greeks all the exact sciences and branches of knowledge,
everything that gives the soul true vision and clears the mind

31 Aristotle: fr 192 Ross (W.D.Ross, Aristotle Fragmenta Selecta 1955). See
KRS VII esp.228-32, Philip ch.5-6, Barnes 11.76-81, for his account of
Pythagoreanism. Astronomy: for P;^hagorean astronomy see D.R.Dicks,
Early Greek Astronomy to Aristotle (1970) ch.4, and Burkert LS IV.
Pythagoreans appear to have held that the earth, as well as the moon, sun,
planets and “fixed stars”, rotated around a central fire; their distances apart
were in harmonic proportion, and their movement produced the “music of

13

blinded by other practices, so that they may see the real
principles and causes of all there is. (32) The best form of civic
life, community living, the principle “friends have all in
common”, worship of the gods and respect for the departed,
lawgiving, education, control of speech, mercy towards living
things, self-control, temperance, alertness of mind and likeness
to god — in a word, all good things; all these, through him, were
seen by lovers of learning to be desirable and worthy of effort. So,
as I have just said, it was with good reason that they so greatly
admired Pythagoras.

7 Characteristic examples of his actions in Italy and his public
speeches.

(33) Next I must say how he went abroad and where first,
and what he said to whom on what subjects: that will make it
easy for us to understand his concerns at that period of his life. It
is said that on arriving in Italy and Sicily he found that some
cities had been made subject to others, some for years and some
recently. These he filled with the spirit of freedom through his
disciples in each, rescued and liberated them; Kroton, Sybaris,

the spheres” (see on 64-7). Later astronomers, using this or another (geocentric or
heliocentric) model, added refinements to explain the “anomalies” that is the
observed movements of the heavens which do not fit the model. Thus “eccentrics”
are movements not centred on the earth, and “epicycles” are circles the centre of
which moves round the circumference of a much larger circle: both appear in
writings of the C3 BC and have no known Pythagorean connection. “Eastward
motion” translates Greek hypoleipsis, the technical term for the apparent
movement of planets eastward along the ecliptic: they are always being “left
behind” (Greek hypoleipesthai) by the stars, which appear to move westward.
Again, this is not connected with early Fytha^rean theoiy. The “heings between”
may be those sometimes postulated (Aristotle, On the Heaven 293b 21-30) to
explain why lunar eclipses are more fi:'e<}uent than solar eclipses: they Uock the
view of the moai finm the earth. For the rest of the paragraph cf.58-9 and note.
33-5 Kroton: Vatai p.42-5. P. might have heard about it finm Demokedes of Kroton
(see 261-2n.), physician to Polykrates of Samos, or have known about its cult
(attested on coins) of Pythian Apollo. I. dates P.’s arrival to 516-3 BC (35); Justin,
epitomator (C3 AD) of Pompeius TVogus (Cl AD), who probably follows the Sicilian
hdstorian Timaeus (C4-3 BC), sets it after a disastrous defeat of Kroton by
Lokroi, which was probably c.540-30 BC (Justin 20.4; T.Dunbabin, The
Western Greeks 1948, 358ff). P. then engages in moral rearmament. For

14

Katana, Rhegion, Himera, Akragas, 'Ikuromenion, and others. He also
made laws for them, acting through Charondas of Katana and
Zaleukos of Lokroi, which gave them for many years to come excellent
government and the well-deserved envy of their neighbours. (34)
Faction, disagreement, in a word, divergence of opinion, he utterly
abolished, not only among his followers and their descendants for (it is
said) tnany generations, but in general from all the cities of Italy and
Sicily, both in their domestic affairs and in their relations with each
other. There was a pregnant saying, like the advice of an oracle, which
summed up and epitomised his beliefs: he addressed it to eveiyone
everywhere, both the few and the many. “These things are to be
avoided by every means, eradicated by fire or iron or any other means:
disease from the body, ignorance from the soul, luxury from the belly,
faction from the city, division from the household, excess from
everything.” This was an affectionate reminder to everyone of the best
beliefs. (35) This, then, was his characteristic way of life, in speech and
action, at this time.

8 His visit to Kroton, his actions on his first visit and his address to
the young men.

A more detailed account of what he said and did may be needed.
He arrived in Italy, then, in the sixty-second Olympiad, in which
Eryxias of ChaDds won the foot-race. At once he was gazed at and
followed about, jiast as he had been when he sailed to Delos. There the
people in the island had marvelled that he offered prayers only at the
altar of Apollo Genetor, who alone receives no blood sacrifice. (36) This
time, travelling from Sybaris to Kroton, he came upon some fishermen
on the shore. They were still hauling in their net, full of fish, under
water, but he told them how big a catch they were pulling, giving the
exact number of fish. The men said they would do whatever he told
them, if it proved to be true. He told them to count the fish carefully.

what is known of Charondas and Zaleukos see Dunbabin 68-74; 172
below adds some otherwise unknown legislators from Rhegion (von Fritz
p.57 thinks Theaitetos there = Theokles 130 = Euthykles 267). Other
South Italian and Sicilian cities: Dunbabin ch.10-12.

35-6 Apollo Genetor: see 25n. Other examples of superhuman powers
134-6,142-3; see on 68-70.

15

and to let them go alive. What was even more remarkable, not one of
the fish died while he stood by, thou^ they were out of water for all
the time it took to coimt them. He gave the fishermen the price of their
catch, and went on to Kroton. They spread the story, and told everyone
his name, which they learnt from the servants. Those who heard
wanted to see the stranger, and that was easy, for his appearance was
such as to strike awe into those who saw him, and made them aware
of his true nature. (37) A few days later he went to the gymnasium.
The young men flocked round him, and tradition says that he
addressed them, urging them to respect their elders. He demonstrated
that in the universe, in life, in cities, in nature, that which comes
before is more honoured than that which follows in time. Thus sunrise
is more honoured than sunset, dawn more than evening, beginning
more than end, coming to be more than passing away. Likewise
natives are more honoured than incomers, and similarly in colonies
the foimders and settlers of cities receive more honour. In general, the
gods are more honoured than spirits, spirits more than demigods,
heroes more than humans, and among them those who caused the
birth of the younger ones. (38) He said this to induce them to value
their parents more highly. They owed them, he said, all that gratitude
that would be felt by a man who had died for the one who had been
able to bring him back to life. It was just to love above all, and never
grieve, those who are our earliest and greatest benefactors. Our
parents alone are our first benefactors, even before our birth, and
ancestors are responsible for all the achievements of their descendants.
We cannot go wrong if we show the gods that we do good to our
parents before all others. The gods, we may suppose, will pardon those
who honour their parents above all, for our parents taught us to
honour the gods. (39) That is why Homer exalts the king of the gods
with that very title, calling him ‘father of gods and mortals”, and why
many other makers of myths have given us the story that the rulers
of the gods competed to have for themselves the love of their

37-57 Krotoniate sermons: de Vogel ch.6 discusses these in detail, and
argues for C4 BC circulation preserving authentic tradition.

39 Ethical interpretation of a dubious myth. Traditionally, this was first
done by Theagenes of Rhegion, C5 BC; examples from late antique

16

children, which is divided between the parents who are joined
together. That is why each took on the role both of father and of
mother. Zeus brought forth Athena, Hera brought forth
Hephaistos, each offspring of the sex opposite to that of the
parent, so as to share in a love which was more remote from
them. (40) All present agreed that the judgement of the
immortals was sure. Then he told the Krotoniates that, as their
founders were kin to Herakles, they must willingly obey their
parents’ commands. They had heard how he, a god, underwent
his labours in obedience to a senior god, and had founded the
Olympics in honour of his father, as a victory-celebration of his
achievements. The path to success in their relations with one
another was to treat their friends as if they would never be
enemies, and their enemies as if they would soon be friends, and
to practise in courtesy to their elders the good will they had for
their parents, and in kindness to others the fellow-feeling they
had for their brothers. (41) Next he talked about self-control.
Youth, he said, was the testing-time of nature, when desires are
at their strongest. He advised them to consider that this, alone
among the virtues, deserved the efforts of boys and girls, women
and old people, and especially young men. Furthermore, he said,
self-control alone embraces the good of body and soul alike,
safeguarding health and the desire for the best habits of life. (42)
This was obvious, he said, from the opposite way of living.
Greeks and foreigners fought at Troy, and many fell victim to
terrible disasters in the war or on the voyage home, all for one

philosophy in Sheppard ch.4 and in Lamberton. Zeus swallowed Metis
(“shrewdness”) after a warning that her child would be greater than he;
Athene sprang fiilly-armed fiom his head.

40 Heraldes: see 50 and note.

42 The leading families of (Opuntian) Lokroi, in central Greece, sent two
girls to serve in Athene’s temple at Ilion (TVoy) in expiation of the rape of
Cassandra there by their ancestor Ai^x the Less (who was honoured by cult
at Western Lokroi in South Italy). This practice, supposed to continue for a
thousand years after the fall of IVoy, was suspended in the C4 BC but
resumed in the C2 BC. See further F.Walbank, A Historical Commentary
On Polybius II (1967) 335. “Men of virtue” translates hoi kaloi kagathoi
ton andron.

17

man’s lack of control. The god decreed both a ten-year and a
thousand-year sentence for this one crime, prophesying both the
capture of Troy and the Locrians’ sending back the maidens to
the temple of Athena Ilias. He also encouraged the young men to
seek education, telling them to reflect how absurd it would be to
think intelligence the greatest asset, and use it to deliberate on
other matters, but not to invest any time or effort in training the
intelligence. Concern for the body, like friends of no account,
quickly leaves us in the lurch, but education, like men of virtue,
remains with us until death — and for some even after death,
creating immortal fame. (43) He gave them many other
arguments, some from history, some from philosophy, to show
that education is the collective genius of those outstanding in
every subject, for their discoveries have become the education of
others. Education is by its nature so important, that whereas
other objects of praise either cannot be got from someone else
(like strength and beauty and health and courage) or cannot be
kept if you give them away (like riches and office and many
others), education can be got from someone else and can be given
away without loss. (44) Again, some things cannot be got by
human effort, but we can all be educated by our own choice, and
can then be seen to take up our country’s business not out of self-
conceit, but because of our education. It is upbringing which
distinguishes humans from beasts, Greeks from foreigners, free
men from household slaves, and philosophers from ordinary
people. And philosophers are so far above the rest, that whereas
seven men from one city — their own — had been found to run
faster than the rest at Olympia, only seven men in the whole
inhabited world could be counted among the first in wisdom. But
in later times, his own times, one man surpassed all others in
philosophy: this was what he called himself, “philosopher” (lover
of wisdom) not “sage”. (45) This, then, is what he said to the
young men in the gymnasium.

44 “Philosopher”: see 58n. For the seven wise men (the Seven Sages) see
Burn (l.c. n.ll); Strabo 262 says that in one Olympic race the first seven
runners were all from Kroton.

18

9 His address to the Thousand who governed the city, on the
best ways of speaking and habits of life.

The young men told their fathers what Pythagoras had said,
and the Thousand summoned him to the council. First they
thanked him for what he had said to their sons, then they asked
him, if he had good advice for the people of Kroton, to give it to
those in charge of government. He advised them first to found a
temple of the Muses, to preserve their existing concord. These
goddesses, he said, all had the same name, went together in the
tradition, and were best pleased by honours to all in common.
The chorus of the Muses was always one and the same, and they
had charge of unison, harmony and rhythm, all that goes to
make up concord. He explained that their power extends not only
to the most splendid objects of thought, but also to the concert
and harmony of being. (46) Next he said that they must think of
their country as a deposit made with them all by the mass of
citizens, and must manage it so that they could hand on to their
descendants what was entrusted. And that would certainly be so,
if they treated all the citizens fairly, and attended above all to
what is just. People know that justice is needed everywhere, so
they made the myth that Themis ranks with Zeus as Dike does
with Pluto and as law does in cities, in order to make it clear
that a man who does not deal justly with his charge thereby
commits a crime against all the universe. (47) He said that
councillors should not swear by any of the gods: they should deal
in words which would be trustworthy without oaths. They should
so manage their own households that their political principles
could be referred to the standard of their private conduct. They
should be generously disposed towards their children, for among
other animals only people can grasp that idea, and each should

45 Nothing is known of the political composition of the Thousand, the
council which ruled Kroton. For the Muses, see P.Boyanc6, Le Culte Des
Muses Chez Les Philosophes Grecs (1936) part 3 ch.l.

46 Themis is the personification of (customary) law, the way things
should be; Dike of justice. For Pluto see 123.

47“among other animals”: reading monous...eilephotas, as in the

19

behave to the woman who shares his life in the awareness that
his contracts with others are set down in documents and
inscriptions, but his contract with his wife is recorded in their
children. They should try to be loved by their descendants not by
nature, for which they were not responsible, but by choice, for
that is a benefit voluntarily given. (48) They should also be
resolved that they would know only their wives, and that their
wives should not adulterate the line because their partners
neglect and injure them. A man should think that his wife was
brought to him in the sight of the gods, like a suppliant, taken
with libations from the hearth. He should set an example of
discipline and self-control both to the household of which he is
head and to those in the city; he should ensure that no-one does
the slightest injury to anyone, so that instead of committing
surreptitious crimes in fear of the legal penalty, they strive for
justice out of respect for his nobility of character. (49) As for
action, he urged them to reject inactivity: good, he said, was
nothing other than the right moment for any action. The greatest
crime is to alienate parents and children. The best man is the
one who can himself foresee what is beneficial, the second best
he who realises, from the experience of others, what is profitable,
and the worst he who waits until he learns from suffering to see
what is best. People who seek honour will not go wrong if they
copy those who win races: their aim is not to injure their
opponents, but to achieve victory. People engaged in politics
should help their supporters, not obstruct their opponents.
Anyone who wants a truly good reputation, he said, should be as
he would like to appear to others. Good advice is less holy than
praise, for advice is needed only for people, but praise is required

manuscripts. Deubner emends so that “other animals grasp this idea, if
no other”.

48 A suppliant invoked the protection of the god by contact with a
sacred place. The hearth is one such, sacred to Hestia, the unmarried
daughter of Zeus. Anyone who took the suppliant’s right hand (as in the
marriage ritual) accepted responsibility for his or her welfare.

20

for the gods. (50)He concluded by saying that, according to
tradition, their city was founded by Herakles when he drove the
cattle through Italy. He was injured by Lakinios, and unwittingly
killed Kroton, who had come at night to help him, thinking he
was one of the enemy. Herakles then promised to found a city
named Kroton at his tomb, if he himself achieved immortality. So
they were bound to administer it justly, in gratitude for the
kindness Herakles had returned. Having heard him, they
founded the temple of the Muses, and sent away the concubines
it had been their custom to keep. And they asked him to speak
separately to the children in the Pythaion, and the women in the
temple of Hera.

10 His advice to the children of Kroton, in the Pythaion, on his
first visit.

(51) He agreed, and began by telling the children never to
start a quarrel or to fight back against the ones who did, and to
work hard at their education, which was called after their time of
life. Then he said that a good child would find it easy to stay a
good person throughout life, but one with a bad disposition at
this critical time would find it difficult, not to say impossible, to
finish well from a poor start. Further, he showed that the gods
love children best of all, and that is why, when there is a
drought, the cities send them to ask the gods for water; the
divine power will listen most readily to them, and they alone,
being always pure, have permanent permission to be in sacred
places. (52) That, he said, is why everyone paints or portrays

50 Several cities in South Italy and Sicily had cults of Herakles, who - according
to legend - had visited them in the course of his tenth labour, driving the cattle of
Geryon fiom the west to the Peloponnese. DS 4.24.7 tells the story tfiat Herakles
promised to found Kroton, and (8.17) how the Delphic Oracle instructed
Myskellos to do so. The Lakinian promontoiy was just south of Kroton.

51-2 “Called after their time of life”: children are paides, education paideia. Apollo
killed the monster Pytho, and earned his title Pythios, while still a baby, but is
usually portrayed as a youth. Melikertes was the son of Ino-Leukothea, who
jumped with him into the sea at the Isthmus of Corinth; Archemoros was killed
by a snake, at Nemea, while his nurse showed the Seven Against Thebes where
to find water.

21

Apollo and Eros, the gods who most love humans, as children. And
everyone agrees that some of the games where you win a crown were
founded because of children; the Pythian games after a boy had
defeated Pytho, the Nemean and Isthmian for the sake of children,
after the deaths of Archemoros and Melikertos. And besides these
stories, when Kroton was founded, Apollo promised the leader of the
settlement to give him descendants if he took a colony to Italy. (53) So
they must realise that Apollo had a special concern for their birth, and
all the gods had a special concern for childhood, and they must deserve
the love of the gods and practice listening so as to be able to speak. They
should start at once on the path they would tread to old age, following
those who had gone before and not answering back to their elders. Then
they might reasonably expect, later on, that younger people would
respect them. It is agreed that these moral discourses made everyone
stop using the name Pythagoras, and call him instead “the divine”.

11 His address to the women of Kroton, in the temple of Hera, on his
first visit

(54) His address to the women began on the subject of sacrifices. If
someone were going to offer prayers for them, he said, they would want
it to be a good man, such as the gods would favour. So they too must set
the highest value on goodness, so that the gods will be ready to respond
to their prayers. He told them that what they planned to offer the gods
should be made with their own hands and carried to the altar without
the help of servants: cakes, pastry models, honey, incense. They should
not honour the divine power by bloodshed and death, nor should they
spend much at one time as though they had no intention of coming
back. As for their relationship with their husbands, they should realise
that even fathers concede it is natural for a woman to love the man who
has married her more than the man who gave her birth. So it is right
not to oppose your husband, or else to count it as your victory when he
has got his way. (55) It was to this meeting of women that he made his
famous remark: “A woman who has slept with her husband may

55 The famous remark is ascribed to Theano at 132. Sexual intercourse caused
(brief) ritual pollution : Robert Parker, Miasma(1983) 74-5. Women’s loans;
cfAristophanes, y^menAt The Assembly (Ekklesdazousai) 446-51: the more

22

go that same day to the temples; if it was not her husband,
never.” He also urged them to say little, and that good, all their
lives, and see that what others could say of them was good. They
should not ruin their inherited reputation and disprove the
myth-makers, who saw the justice of women in their lending
clothes and jewels, when someone else needed them, without a
witness, and without any lawsuits and quarrels arising from the
loan. So they told of three women who, because of their
cooperation, used one eye in common. If they had told that story
of men, saying that the one who had the eye first cheerfully gave
it back and willingly shared what he had, no-one would have
believed it: it is not in men’s nature. (56) That one called wisest
of all, he said, the god or spirit or godlike human who created
human language and invented all the words, saw that women
have a very close connection with piety, and named each stage of
a woman’s life after a god. An unmarried girl is kore, one given to
a man is nymphe, one who has borne children is meter, one who has
seen her children’s children has the Doric name maia. And it
accords with this that the oracles of Dodona and Delphi are revealed
through a woman. 'Tradition says that his praise of piety caused so
great a change in them, in favour of simplicity of dress, that not one
of them ventured to wear her expensive clothes, and they dedicated
all these — thousands of them — in the temple of Hera. (57) He is
said also to have explained that a famous instance of a man’s
virtuous conduct to his wife occurred near Kroton, when Odysseus
refused to accept immortality from Calypso at the cost of deserting

striking because clothes sind jewels were their only acknowledged possessions.
'The three women Eoe the Graiai (see Mark GrifiBth on Aeschylus, Prometheus
Bound 793-800). "Ib say little and that good” attempts to translate Greek
euphemein, which means both “sp)eak well” and “be silent”.

56-7 For names as revealing the true nature of things, see Lamberton 39,86-90,
164-73; for the divine origin of language (as in Plato, Kratylos) and especially of
divine names, see Sheppard 90-1 and 138-41. Kore is Persephone, daughter of
Demeter who is sometimes equated with Kybebe, the Phiygian Great Mother
or Meter. Nymphs are lesser deities of rivers and springs. Maia is the mother of
Hermes. The location of Odysseus’s wanderings in Sicily and Italy is said by
StraboQ.23) to go back to Hesiod.

23

Penelope. Now it was for the women to show their nobility of
character to their husbands, and redress the balance of fame.
Tradition says that these addresses brought Pythagoras
outstanding honour and enthusiasm from the people of Kroton and
from there throughout Italy.

12 His beliefs about philosophy, and why he was the first to call
himself “philosopher”.

(58) Pythagoras is said to have been the first person to call
himself a philosopher. It was not just a new word that he
invented: he used it to explain a concern special to him. He said
that people approach life like the crowds that gather at a
festival. People come from all around, for different reasons: one
is eager to sell his wares and make a profit, another to win fame
by displaying his physical strength; and there is a third kind, the
best sort of free man, who come to see places and fine
craftsmanship and excellence in action and words, such as are
generally on display at festivals. Just so, in life, people with all
kinds of concerns assemble in one place. Some hanker after
money and an easy life; some are in the clutches of desire for
power and of frantic competition for fame; but the person of the
greatest authority is the one who has chosen the study of that
which is finest, and that one we call a philosopher. (59) Heaven
in its entirety, he said, and the stars in their courses, is a fine
sight if one can see its order. But it is so by participation in the

58-9 HeraWeides of Pontus claimed (fr.l29 Wehrli) that P. invented the term
“philosopher”; cf. DS 10.10.1, P. said cxily the gods have wisdom (sophia): the most
we can have is the love of wisdom (philosophia). Burkert LS 65 disputes the
claim. In the festival analogy, theoria moves frran its original sense of “seeing” or
“visiting” (especially by a delegation sent to an oracle or a religious festival) to its
philosophical usage of “intellectual visiOTi”, which requires both hard intellectual
work and the focussing of the mind on changeless reality, not worldly concerns
(Dorothy Emmet, JTS ns 17(1966)38-52). On the tradition of P. as contemplative,
see LJB.Carter, The Quiet Athenian (1986) 133-7. The cosmic order was often
used as an argument for the existence of (visible) gods. I. here makes P. give a
Platonist account (expanded at 159-60) of reality. We cannot have knowledge of
anything which (Tike the cosmic order) changes, or is different in relation to
different things: we can only have a belief which is, for the

24

primary and intelligible. And what is primary is number and
rational order permeating all there is: all things are ranged in
their proper and harmonious order in accordance with these.
Wisdom is real knowledge, not requiring effort, concerned with
those beautiful things which are primary, divine, pure,
unchanging: other things may be called beautiful if they
participate in these. Philosophy is zeal for such study. Concern
for education is beautiful too, working with Pythagoras for the
amendment of humanity.

13 Several examples of Pythagoras’ ability to give rational
education to beasts and non-rational animals.

(60) If we may believe the many ancient and valuable
sources who report it, Pythagoras had a power of relaxing
tension and giving instruction in what he said which reached
even non-rational animals. He inferred that, as everything comes
to rational creatures by teaching, it must be so also for wild
creatures which are believed not to be rational. They say he laid
hands on the Daunian she-bear, which had done most serious
damage to the people there. He stroked her for a long time,
feeding her bits of bread and fruit, administered an oath that she
would no longer catch any living creature, and let her go. She
made straight for the hills and the woods, and was never again

moment, correct Such objects of belief owe not only their qualities (eg.beauty) but
their very existence to transcendent unchanging “forms” (Plato’s term) or
universals, here called “primary and intelligible” berause they are priOT to other
existents and they can be known. “Participation” {metousia, metechein) is the
technical term for the relationship of particular things to transcendent reality.
Aristotle discussed what I^lhagareans meant by nuirher as primary, and how it
related to Plato’s “forms”: see references at 31 n. In the last sentence of 59,
“together with E” seems the only possible sense for the Greek autd.

60 Non-rational animals are analogous to the part of the human soul which, in
Hato’s threefold division (JRepublic 4), is not itself rational but can obey reason.
Deubner thinks P.’s power is called anal^kon in the medical sense, “relaxing”,
not in the philosophical sense “analysing”: he is probably right, since I. does not
say that the non-rational animals followed a rational argument. I think the
translaticai “he inferTCd..Jiot to be rational” gives the only possible sense of the
Greek; but if the Greek is right, the argument is urx»nvincing.

61 The first appearance of the most notorious Pythagorean tenet: no

25

seen to attack even a non-rational animal. (61) At Taras he saw
an ox, in a field of mixed fodder, mvmching on ripe beans as well.
He went over to the oxherd and advised him to tell the ox to
abstain from beans. The oxherd made fun of his suggestion. “I
don’t speak Ox,” he said, “and if you do you’re wasting your
advice on me: you should warn the ox.” So Pythagoras went up
and spent a long time whispering in the bull’s ear. The bull
promptly stopped eating the bean-plant, of his own accord, and
they say he never ate beans again. He lived to a very great age at
Taras, growing old in the temple of Hera. Everyone called him
“Pythagoras’ holy bull” and he ate a human diet, offered him by
people who met him.

(62) He happened once to be talking to his students, at the
Olympic games, about omens and messages from the the gods
brought by birds, saying that eagles too bring news to those the
gods really love. An eagle flew overhead: he called it down,
stroked it, and let it go. It is clear from these stories, and others
like them, that he had the command of Orpheus over wild
creatures, charming them and holding them fast with the power
of his voice.

14 The starting-point of his system of education was recall of
the lives which souls had lived before entering the bodies they
now happen to inhabit.

beans. Ancients and modems have offered many explanations: beans (vicia faba,
the broad bean) have special afiSnities with human flesh; their nodeless stems
offer human souls a route to earth from the underworld; bean-induced flatulence
disturbs dreams (106); beans mean votes (260). The preferred modem
explanation is favism, an acute allergic reaction to beans and especially their
pollen, which results fixon a genetic deficiency widespread in southern Italy. See
Detienne GA 49-51; M.Grmek Diseases in the Ancient World (ET1989) ch.5. The
“human dietf of the ox would be grain-based (like that of horses).

63 The second famous tenet: reincamaticai, which requires the immortality of
the soul (for possible versions of the argument, Barnes 1.6; for the tradition,
Philip ch.i0). The Homer passage is Iliad 17.51-60: Iliad 16. M9-50 might allow
the identification of Euphorbos with Apollo (Burkert LS 140-1, with other
explanations). The “popular stories” are in DL 8.4-5 and DS 10.6.2: P. recognised
a shield which proved to have “Euphorbos’s” written inside, in archaic letters.

26

(63) In educating humans he had an excellent starting-
point: it was something, he said, which had to be understood, if
people were to learn the truth in other matters. He aroused in
many of those he met a most clear and vivid remembrance of an
earlier life which their souls had lived long ago, before being
bound to this present body. He gave indisputable proofs that he
himself had been Euphorbos son of Panthoos, the opponent of
Patroklos, and the lines of Homer he most frequently recited, or
sang to a melodious accompaniment on the lyre, were those on
the death of Euphorbos:

“His hair, like the hair of the Graces, braided with gold and
silver, was soaked with blood. A man grows a flourishing olive¬
sapling in a lonely place, where a spring of water bubbles up, a
lovely luxuriant tree, swaying in the breezes which blow from all
sides, and laden with white flowers. Then a gust of wind, sudden
and violent, uproots it from its trench and stretches it out on the
ground. Such was Euphorbos, son of Panthoos, with his ash
spear, when Menelaos son of Atreus killed him and stripped off
his armour.”

We will pass over the popular stories of the shield of this
Euphorbos, which is dedicated, with other Trojan spoils, to
Argive Hera at Mycenae. The one point we wish to make from it
all is this: Pythagoras knew his own previous lives, and began
his training of others by awakening their memory of an earlier
existence.

15 How he first led people to education, through the senses;
how he restored the souls of his associates through music, and
how he himself had restoration in its most perfect form.

(64) He thought that the training of people begins with the
senses, when we see beautiful shapes and forms and hear
beautiful rhythms and melodies. So the first stage of his system
of education was music: songs and rhythms from which came
healing of human temperaments and passions. The original

64-7 Music: see on 115. Music of the spheres, see 82n: the harmonic ratios
(fourth, fifth and octave) which can be constructed from the first four numbers

27

harmony of the soul’s powers was restored, and Pythagoras
devised remission, and complete recovery, from diseases affecting
both body and soul. It is especially remarkable that he
orchestrated for his pupils what they call “arrangements” and
“treatments”. He made, with supernatural skill, blends of
diatonic and chromatic and enharmonic melodies, which easily
transformed into their opposites the maladies of the soul which
had lately without reason arisen, or were beginning to grow, in
his students; grief, anger, pity; misplaced envy, fear; all kinds of
desires, appetite, wanting; empty conceit, depression, violence.
All these he restored to virtue, using the appropriate melodies
like mixtures of curative drugs.

(65) When his disciples, of an evening, were thinking of
sleep, he rid them of the daily troubles which buzzed about them,
and purified their minds of the turbid thoughts which had
washed over them: he made their sleep peaceful and supplied
with pleasant, even prophetic, dreams. And when they got up, he
freed them from the torpor, lassitude and sluggishness that
comes in the night, using his own special songs and melodies,
unaccompanied, singing to the lyre or with the voice alone. He no
longer used musical instruments or songs to create order in
himself: through some unutterable, almost inconceivable
likeness to the gods, his hearing and his mind were intent upon
the celestial harmonies of the cosmos. It seemed as if he alone
could hear and understand the universal harmony and music of
the spheres and of the stars which move within them, uttering a
song more complete and satisfying than any human melody,
composed of subtly varied sounds of motion and speeds and sizes
and positions, organized in a logical and harmonious relation to
each other, and achieving a melodious circuit of subtle and
exceptional beauty.

(66) Refreshed by this, and by regulating and exercising his
reasoning powers thereby, he conceived the idea of giving his

govern both music and the cosmos (Aristotle, On The Heaven 290bl2-
291 a28). The quotation from Empedokles (67) is fr.l29, translated KRS 218-
9; see also Barnes 11.193-205. He came from Akragas in Sicily and may have

28

disciples some image of these things, imitating them, so far as it
was possible,through musical instruments or the unaccompanied
voice. He believed that he, alone of those on earth, could hear
and understand the utterance of the universe, and that he was
worthy to learn from the fountain-head and origin of existence,
and to make himself, by effort and imitation, like the heavenly
beings; the divine power which brought him to birth had given
him alone this fortunate endowment. Other people, he thought,
must be content to look to him, and to derive their profit and
improvement from the images and models he offered them as
gifts, since they were not able truly to apprehend the pure,
primary archetypes.

(67) When people cannot look directly at the sun, because of
the brilliance of its rays, we find ways to show them an eclipse,
with a deep container of water or a film of pitch or a black-backed
mirror, sparing their weak eyesight and devising an alternative
way of understanding, which they are happy to accept even though
it is less exact. Empedokles too seems to have said this, in riddling
words, about him and his exceptional and god-given endowment:

Among them was a man of exceptional knowledge,
who had very great riches of understanding,
one who ruled over all works of wisdom.

When he reached out with the full range of his mind
he easily surveyed everything there is,
over ten or twenty generations of men.

“Exceptional” and “surveyed everything there is” and “riches of
understanding” and other such expressions allude to his uniquely
refined endowment of vision, hearing and thought.

16 The purificatory regime which he too employed; the more
advanced practice of friendship which also prepared those suited to
philosophy.

(68) This, then, is how he used music for the “arrangement”

had Pythagorean contacts in the mid C5 BC: his Purifications (cf.68)
opposed animal sacrifice because the animal might be the home of a
reincarnated human soul.

68-70 The pagan ascetic life: training (.askesis) of body and mind by self-

29

of souls. He also practiced another kind of purification of the
mind and soul together, using a variety of methods. He required
vigour in tackling the hard work of learning and training; and it
was a basic rule for those who undertook them to apply
ingenious trials and chastisements and onslaughts “by fire and
sword” to the self-indulgence and greed which are innate in all of
us. No bad man could endure these and persevere. He also
taught his disciples to abstain from all living things and from
certain foods which hinder the pure and keen operation of
reason; to “hold their peace” or to be entirely silent, which
trained them for years in the control of the tongue; and to
practice intense and unremitting pursuit and practice of the
most abstruse theoretical studies.

(69) For the same reasons he enjoined abstinence from wine,
frugal diet, and rationing of sleep; spontaneous contempt for
fame, wealth and the like, and resistance to them; sincere
reverence for those who have gone before, unfeigned goodwill
and fellow-feeling for one’s peers, willing encouragement,
without envy, of those younger than oneself, and friendship of all
for all. Friendship of gods for humans, through piety and

examination, by a lifestyle which allows the real needs of the body to be met
without spiritual disturbance, and by peace and quiet (Fowden 57). See 96-100 for
the daily regime, and 29-30n for the Christian jjarallels. Purification is a concept of
great importance to I. Building on Plato CP/Mjeidb64a, 67cd; Republic 521c) he hopes
to purify the soul fiom the contamination of desire and of material existence, both
by hard rational thou^t and by rituals which, in earlier tradition, had “purified”
blood-guilt, insanity and other forms of ritual impurity. Philia, here conventionally
translated “fiiendship”, is a sense of belonging; as the force of attraction, balanced
by the force of repulsion (“strife”), it keeps the universe in being. For I. it is philia
which unifies each level of reality; it is also philia which links the higher and lower
levels, making it possible for tiie human soul, with the gods’ help, to approach the
divine. Philia also brings about “qrmpathy” (shared feeling) in the lower levels of
reality which are bound by the laws of the cosmos {On The Mysteries 3.27): an event
at one place has effects el^where which can be interpreted by those specially gifted
in “divination” (as at 36 and 92). This is “artificial mantic”, the re^ng of signs
within the sensible world, and it is difierent from “natural mantic” in which the
soul, released in ecstasy or dream, contemplates (he causal principles of the world.
Dreams (70) are, traditionally, sent by gods or daimones when the soul is free from
the sleeping body. See further 138n.

30

worship based on knowledge; friendship of one doctrine for
another, of soul for body and the reasoning part for the
unreasoning, achieved through philosophy and the study it
entails; friendship of people for one another: fellow-citizens
through a healthy respect for law, different peoples through a
proper understanding of nature, a man with his wife or brothers
and intimates through unswerving partnership;in short,
friendship of all for all, including some of the non-rational
animals through justice and natural connection and partnership;
even the mortal body’s pacification and reconciliation of the
opposing powers hidden within itself, through health and a
lifestyle and practice of temperance which promotes health, and
imitates the flourishing of the cosmic elements. (70) All these
may be summed up in that one word “friendship”, and
Fythagoras is the acknowledged founding father of it all.

He was also the cause of his disciples’ holding converse with
the gods in the form best suited to us, waking visions and
dreams. Dreams do not come to the soul which is turbid with
anger or distracted with grief or pleasure or some other shameful
desire — and especially not if the soul suffers that most unholy
and intractable ailment, ignorance. Pythagoras, with
supernatural power, healed all these, purified the soul and
rekindled the divine spark in it, restored and redirected to the
object of thought that divine eye whose security, as Plato says, is
more important than that of a thousand bodily eyes. Only to the
one who sees with that eye, having strengthened and articulated
it with the proper aids, is the true nature of things perceptible.
His purification of the mind was directed to this, and this was
the character and aim of his system of education.

17 Pythagoras’ examination of followers when they first
approached him, and his methods of testing their characters

69 The Greek text would allow the “non-rational animals” to be fiiends with each
other or with humans. I think the reference is to the “social animals” (philosophers
were impressed with bees).

70 The Plato reference is Republic 527de.

31

before he began their introduction to philosophy.

(71) Since this was the education he could offer his disciples,
he would not immediately accept young men who came and
wanted to study with him, until he had put them through an
examination and made a judgement. He asked first how they got
on with their parents and other members of the family. Then he
considered whether they laughed at the wrong moment, whether
they could be silent and whether they talked too much, what
their desires were, which of his students they knew and how
they behaved towards them, how they spent their days, what
made them happy or sad. He also considered their physical form,
their walk and their general coordination, using their physical
characteristics as visible evidence of the habits of soul that could
not be seen.

(72) The person he had examined was then sent away and
ignored for three years, to test his constancy and his genuine
love of learning, and to see whether he had the right attitude to
reputation and was able to despise status. After this, he imposed
a five-year silence on his adherents, to test their self-control:
control of the tongue, he thought, is the most difficult type of
self-control, a truth made apparent to us by those who
established the mysteries. During this time each one’s property
was held in common, entrusted to particular students who were
called “civil servants” and who managed the finances and made
the rules. If the candidates were found worthy to share in the
teachings, judging by their life and general principles, then after
the five-year silence they joined the inner circle: now, within the
veil, they could both hear and see Pythagoras. Before this they
were outside the veil: they never saw Pythagoras and shared his
discourses only through hearing, and their character was tested
over a long period. (73) If one failed the test, he was given double

72 “Mysteries” are literally things to be kept silent, specifically things
known only to initiates in the mystery-cults, who were under oath not to
reveal them. Philosophers often used “mystery-language” of philosophic
doctrines (Sheppard ch.4). For the “civil servants” and the “inner circle”
see 80n.

32

his property, and his fellow-hearers (that is what all Pythagoras’
followers were called) built a grave-mound for him as if he were
dead. When they met, they behaved as if it were someone else:
the man they had moulded, expecting that his studies would
produce a good man, they spoke of as dead. The people who
found learning hard they thought of as handicapped and sterile.

(74) So if someone, after having given them good hopes of
him from his assessment on appearance and walk and
coordination, after the five-year silence, after the experiences of
initiation into mystic rites afforded by the great teachings, after
the tremendous purifications of the soul which result from such
profound doctrines, bringing to birth in everyone a keen and
clear awareness in the soul — if, after all this, he was still found
to be difficult to rouse and slow to follow, they would build a
grave-mound and set up a tombstone in the school (it is said they
did so for Perillos of Thourioi and for Kylon, a commander of
Sybaris, whom they rejected) and expel him from the auditorium,
loading him with gold and silver (for they had common stores of
these, administered by people suited to the task whom they
called, from their office, “managers”). If they ever met him in
another context, they held him to be anyone rather than the man
who, for them, was dead.

(75) That is why Lysis, reproaching one Hipparchos for
sharing his teaching with mere adherents who have not been
properly inducted and who lack learning and instruction, says:

“You say we should philosophise in public, for whoever
comes along. Pythagoras said not, and so you learnt, Hipparchos,
in all seriousness. But you did not keep the teaching safe. You
had a taste of Sicilian high living, man, though you should have
got the better of it. If you change, I shall rejoice; if not, you are
dead. It is right, they say, to keep in memory his commands on
divine and human matters, and not to share the goods of wisdom

74 Kylon: see 248; Perillos is not otherwise known. “Managers”: see 80n.

75-7 Lysis Q85, 249-50) was one of the “last Pythagoreans”. He escaped from
the C5 revolt (see 248-64n) to Achaia in mainland Greece, then went to
Thebes where he taught Epaminondas. The letter ascribed to him is written

33

with people whose souls are not remotely purified. It is not right
to hand out to chance-met persons what was achieved with so
much effort and toil, nor yet to expound to the uninitiated the
mysteries of the Two Goddesses of Eleusis — those who do either
are equally wrong and impious.

(76) Think how long a time we spent cleansing the stains
which were ingrained in our breasts, until, with the passage of
the years, we were able to receive his words. As dyers cleanse
and treat with a mordant the parts of the garment which need to
be dyed, so that the dye will be fast and will never fade or be lost
in the wash, so that wonderful man prepared the souls of those
who had fallen in love with wisdom, so that he should not be
disappointed in one of those he hoped would become good men.
He did not purvey false words or the snares with which most
sophists, working for no good purpose, entrap young men: he
knew about divine and human affairs. But those others make his
teaching a pretext and do terrible things, hunting young men in
the wrong way and of set purpose.

(77) So they make their pupils intractable and wilful. They
pour doctrines and divine discourses into troubled, turbid
characters, as if you were to pour clear, pure water into a deep
well choked with mud; it stirs up the mud and the water
disappears. Teachers and pupils of this kind are alike: there are
great shaggy thickets growing round the minds and hearts of
those whose passion for learning is impure, overshadowing all
that is gentle and mild and reasonable in the soul and
preventing the reasoning power from growth and development in
the open.

Perhaps I should first name their mothers. Self-indulgence
and Greed; each one has many children. (78) From Self-
indulgence spring unholy wedlock, corruption, drunkenness,
unnatural pleasures, and passionate desires which pursue their

in “Pythagorean Doric” (see 241), consciously terse and rich in images: see
Thesleff in Entretiens Hardt (2n), and Delatte Litt II. DL 8.42 makes the
addressee Hippasos (see 80n). A mordant (76) is a chemical (e.g. alum)
which “bites” the fabric so that the dye takes.

34

object even to the pit and the precipice. Desires have compelled
some not to hold back even from their mothers or their
daughters; thrusting aside, like a tyrant, the city and the law,
they twist their victim’s arms behind his back and drag him off
by force, like a captive, to thrust him into total ruin. The
offspring of Greed are robbery, piracy, parricide, temple-robbing,
poisoning, and all their siblings. So we must first clear the scrub
in which these passions flourish, using fire and iron and all the
techniques of learning, rescue the reason and free it from these
great evils, and only then plant in it some useful learning from
our store.”

(79) Pythagoras thought it as essential as that to devote so
much care to learning before one practices philosophy. He set the
highest value on teaching and sharing of his doctrines, and made
the most detailed investigation, testing and assessing the beliefs
of those who came to him, and deploying varieties of teaching
and numerous kinds of scientific knowledge.

18 How and why Pythagoras divided his disciples into kinds.

(80) Now let us discuss how he divided those he had
assessed according to their merit. It was not right that all should
have the same share of the same, for not all were alike in nature;
but neither was it right that some should share in all the most
valuable teachings and some in none at all, for that would be a
failure of community feeling and fairness. But by giving each the
appropriate share of the relevant teachings he ensured benefit
for all, so far as they were capable, and also safeguarded the

80 There are conflicting traditions here. The main problem was whether
the true tradition was preserved by Hearers (“acousmatics”) or Learners
(“mathematics”: mathemata, “things learnt”, were not restricted to what
we call maths until the mid C4 BC): see Burkert LS II.5. Philip 138-46
argues that the problem derives from Aristoxenos in the C4 BC: he
wanted enlightened “Learners” rather than the hippy “Hearers” familiar
as Pythagoreans in C4 comedy. I. wants the Learners to be the
acknowledged Pythagoreans: in 81 they do not acknowledge the
Hearers, in 87 they do. The two passages stand together in I. On General
Mathematical Science (ed. NPesta 1891, p.76.198), but there the first passage

35

principle of justice by giving each one the teaching he deserved.
So, on this system, he called some Pythagoreans and some
Pythagorisers (just as we call some people Atticists and some
Atticisers): the distinction of names appropriately marked out
some as real followers and some as aspirants to their status.

(81) He ruled that the Pythagoreans should have their
property in common and should live together in perpetuity; the
others were to keep their private property but should meet and
study together. That is how the succession to Pythagoras came to
take both forms. There were also two kinds of philosophy in
another way, for there were two kinds of people undertaking it,
the Hearers and the Learners. The Learners were acknowledged
as Pythagoreans by the others, but did not themselves
acknowledge the Hearers, saying that their concerns derived not
from Pythagoras but from Hippasos. (Some say Hippasos came
from Kroton, some from Metapontion.)

reverses Hearers and Learners: that is, the Learners acknowledge the Hearers
as a lower grade, but the Hearers claim that true Pythagoreanism is obedience
to P’s word, not the false model cf further research established by the C5 BC
mathematician Hippasos (88, 246-7). I. has probably modified the first passage,
in the Lifk, to give what he thinks is the right result (Burkert LS 193-4). The
groups inside and outside the veil (72), like the Pythagoreans and lythagarisers
(80) are meant to correspond to Learners and Hearers respectively (89).
Philosophers of I.’s time also distinguished committed followers (zelotai) from
those who came to listen (akroatai): Fowden 39. TVadition on the lifestyle of the
Hearers is not consistent, and probably reveals adaptations and compromises. At
29-30, if the text is right, the Hearers live with their faimilies (unlike the
coenobite Learners) but their property is in common; at 81 Fy;hagorisers keep
their private property. 89 end apptears to mean (cf.72) that “dvil servants”
(politikoi) “managers” and “legislators” are alternative names for the
Pythagoreans who administer the community’s affairs, but at 129 and 150
politikoi are engaged in ordinaiy civic life. Civic life required participation in dvic
cult, espedally sacrifice: this may explain why, at 150, hearers and dvil servants
may make animal sacrifices, and why Pythagorean meals may include sacrifidal
meat (98,109; 85 offers an argument that human souls do not migrate into those
animals it is lawful to sacrifice, compare Empedokles fi-.136-7, translated KRS
319). See further Efetienne GA ch.^ I. himself thought human souls, being
rational, did not migrate into non-rational animals (Wallis 120). The C5 AD
philosopher Proclus, a strict vegetarian, also tasted meat at public sacrifices
(Marinus, Life of Proclus 12 and 19).

36

(82) The Hearers’ study of philosophy consists of maxims
without demonstration or argument: “do this”, and the other
pronouncements of Pythagoras. They try to preserve these as
divine teachings; they make no claim to speak for themselves,
nor do they think it right to speak, but they hold those who have
acquired the most axioms to be the best equipped for wisdom.

These maxims are of three kinds, the “what is?”, the “what
is the most?” and the “what is to be done or not done?”. The
“what is?” are like this: “What is ‘the islands of the blest’? The
sun and moon.” “What is the oracle at Delphi? The tetract; it is
also the harmony in which the Sirens sang.” The “what is the
most?” are like this: “What is the most just? Sacrifice.” “What is
the wisest? Number, and the next is that which gives things
their names.” “What is wisest among human skills? Medicine.”
“What is finest? Harmony.” “What is strongest? Judgement.”
“What is best? Happiness.” “What is truest? That people are
wicked.”

82-6 “Maxims” translates acousmata (“things heard”), which are also
symbola (103-5): that is, cryptic statements which hide the truth from
the uninitiated (cf.226-7) and serve as tokens of recognition for initiates.
I. wrote a (lost) treatise on symbols (Larsen p.61 and 88-9), perhaps
concerned with their use in theurgy (as in On the Mysteries 1.21). See
further Philip ch.9, Burkert LS II.4; other interpretations of symbola in
Plutarch, Moralia 727-8, and in I. Protrepticus ch.21.

82 The “islands of the blest” were traditionally the home of good people,
or heroes, after death; so also were the sun and moon, see further
Detienne Daimon 140-67. The “tetract” is the number-series 1, 2, 3, 4
arranged as a triangle of dots. Speusippos (successor of Plato as head of
the Academy) said Pythagoreans equated 1 with point, 2 with line, 3 with
plane and 4 with solid: the progression of numbers symbolised, or
generated, the physical world, ^e Philip ch.6, especially 97-8 note 5. The
first four numbers add up to the “perfect number” 10, and include the
harmonic ratios of fourth, fifth and octave (see 115-21n) which govern the
music of the spheres (see 64-7n) and the song of the Sirens, identified by
Plato Republic 616b-617e with the music of the spheres (KES 233): each
Siren sang one of the eight notes of the octave. (See further Lamberton
230-2.) The Delphic oracle reveals all truth, and the tetract is the
fundamental truth of the universe. For the giver of names see 56-7n.

37

They say that Pythagoras praised the poet Hippodamas of
Salamis for his lines

Whence do you come, O gods, how came you to be as you are?

Whence do you come, O people, how came you to be so wicked?

(83) These, then,are examples of that kind of maxim; each is
a “what is the most?” This is the same as what is called the
wisdom of the seven sages, for they did not ask “What is the
good?” but “What is the most good?”, not “What is the difficult?”
but “What is the most difficult?” (the answer is “to know
yourself’), not “What is the easy?” but “What is the easiest?” (the
answer is “to follow habit”). So these maxims are probably
derived from that kind of wisdom, since the seven sages lived
before Pythagoras.

Maxims about “what is to be done or not done?” are like
this: “One must have children” (so as to leave successors to
worship the gods). “One must put the right shoe on first.” “One
must not walk on public roads, take holy water or use the baths”
(because it is not certain, in all these circumstances, that those
sharing with us are pure). (84) Other examples are “Do not help
to unload a burden” (because it is wrong to encourage lack of
effort) “but help to load it up”. “Do not seek to have children by a
rich woman.” “Do not speak without a light.” “Pour a libation to
the gods over the handle of the cup, as an omen, and so that no-
one drinks from the same place.” “Do not wear a seal-ring with
the image of a god, lest it be defiled: it is a cult-image, which
should be set up in the house.” “A man must not persecute his
wife, for she is a suppliant: that is also why we lead the bride
from the hearth, taking her by the right hand.” “Do not sacrifice
a white cock, for he is a suppliant, sacred to Men: that is also
why he tells the time.” (85) “Never give advice which is not in
the best interest of the one who seeks it: advice is holy.” “Work is
good, pleasure of all kinds is bad: we come looking for
punishment and must have it.” “One should make sacrifice, and

83 The prohibition on public baths may have helped to inspire the
scruffy Pythagoreans of C4 comedy (quotations in DL 8.36-8).

84 Men is Greek for month, and is the name of a Babylonian deity.

38

go to holy places, barefoot.” “One should not leave one’s path to
go to a temple, for we must not make the god an incidental task.”
“It is good to die, if you stand your ground with wounds in front:
if not, not.” “The souls of humans may enter any living creature
except those it is lawful to sacrifice. So we must eat only
sacrificial animals, those that are fit to eat, not any other living
creature.”

Such, then, are these maxims: the most extensive are
concerned with the proper sacrifices on all occasions, the other
honours to the gods, transmigration from this place and the right
method of burial.

(86) Some maxims have to have an additional saying, as
that one should have children in order to leave a replacement to
worship the gods, but some have no explanation added. Some of
the explanations seem to have been there from the beginning,
others are later additions, as in “Do not break bread: it is not
favourable for the judgement in Hades”. Attempts to explain
such things are not Pythagorean, but were made by ingenious
outsiders tiying to give a plausible reason. In this instance, to
explain why one should not break bread, some say one should
not separate that which unites (for in the old days friends shared
one loaf, as barbarians do), others that one should not make a
bad omen by breaking or crumbling at the outset.

But all these precepts about what to do or not to do aim at
the divine. That is the principle: all of life is so ordered as to
follow the god, and that is the rationale of this philosophy. (87)
People behave absurdly when they seek the good anywhere but
from the gods: it is like living in a country with a monarchy,
cultivating some citizen who holds a lesser office and ignoring
the one who rules all. That, the Pythagoreans think, is what
people do. Since God exists and is lord of all, obviously we must
ask our lord for what is good. For everyone gives good things to
those they love and delight in, and the opposite to those for
whom they feel the opposite.

Such, then, is the wisdom of these Pythagoreans.

39

One Hippomedon of Asine, a Pythagorean, one of the
Hearers, said that Pythagoras had in fact given explanations and
proofs of all the axioms, but because the axioms were passed on
by many people, each lazier than the one before, the
explanations had been lost and the hard sayings remained. But
those Pythagoreans concerned with the teachings (the Learners)
accept that those others (the Hearers) are Pythagoreans, but
claim that they themselves are more so and what they say is
true. And this, they say, is the reason for the disparity.

(88) Pythagoras came from Samos, in Ionia, when
Polykrates was tyrant and Italy at its peak of prosperity, and the
leading men in the cities became his associates. But the older
men were involved in politics and had little leisure, so he gave
them the bare instructions: it was hard to find time for the
teachings and proofs, and he thought they would benefit as much
from knowing what to do even without the reason for it, just as a
doctor’s patients get better although they have not been told the
reasons for his instructions. But with the young men, who could
work hard at their studies, he went into the proofs and discussed
the teachings. So they (the Learners) derive from this group, the
others (the Hearers) from the first group. As for Hippasos, he
was indeed a Pythagorean, but because he was first to make
public the sphere constructed from twelve pentagons he was lost
at sea for his impiety: he got the reputation of having discovered
it, but it all came from “that man” — that is what they call
Pythagoras: they do not use his name.

(89) The Pythagoreans say this is how geometry was made
public. One of the Pythagoreans lost all his property, and
because of this misfortune he was allowed to make a living from
geometry. Pythagoras called geometry “enquiry”.

87 Hippomedon’s town is a copjecture: see Deubner.

88 Ihe “sphere constructed fnxn 12 pentagons” is the dodecahedron. \bu can
make a sphere (Greek sphairos, ball) by constructing a dodecahedron in soft
fabric and stuffing it: hence in Plato, Tlmaeus 55c, the dodecahedron is “the
sphere of the all” (see 151n). Dodecahedrons were also, it seems, cult-images, and
Burkert LS 460 sug^sts the impiety was a public mathematical analysis.

89 Perhaps a misreading of Herakleitos fir.i29 (DL 8.6) which says P. practised
enquiry (Burkert LS 408-9); cf.l99 for the publication of geometry.

40

This, then, is the information we have on the difference of
subject-matter and the two groups of men who heard
Pythagoras. Those inside and outside the veil, those who hear
and see and those who hear without seeing, and those divided
into “inside” and “outside” are to be equated with the two groups
I have described. The “civil servants”, “managers” and
“legislators” should also be equated.

19 The many ways of useful education that Pythagoras
discovered; his encounter with Abaris, and how he brought him
to the highest wisdom by yet another way.

(90) It is worth knowing how many ways of education
Pythagoras discovered, always giving the share of wisdom
appropriate to each person’s nature and capacity. Here is a
striking example. When Abaris the Scythian came from the
Hyperboreans, he had no experience of Greek education, was not
an initiate, and was advanced in years. Pythagoras did not lead
him through complex studies, but instead of the five-year silence,
and the long period of hearing and the other trials, he made him
capable at once of hearing his own declared beliefs, and
expounded to him, as briefly as possible, the treatise On Nature
and another On the Gods.

(91) Now Abaris had come from the Hyperboreans, and was
a priest of their Apollo: an old man, very wise in sacred matters.
He was returning from Greece to his own country, to deposit the

90 Here two treatises are ascribed to P. Others are listed by DL 8.6-8,
who notes that some say P. wrote nothing. Porphyry (.Life of P. 57) and
many modern scholars agree. 1.252-3, a parallel passage with Porphyry,
does not say this, but 146, 158 and 198-9 acknowledge doubts about
authorship. At 146 On. The Gods is identified with the Hieros Logos, by
P. or his son Telauges, which is taken to mean “Sacred Book’’:but a
hieros logos, the story which explains a cult or ritual, need not be
written. Delatte Litt part I tries to reconstruct a verse Hieros Logos
with very early elements, surviving within the “Golden Verses” later
ascribed to P..There is a forgery called Hieros Logos at 259. Thesleff
1965 155-86 collects and discusses all fragments ascribed to P.

91 -3 The Hyperboreans (“beyond the north wind”) were a legendary race

41

gold collected for the god in the temple in the land of the
Hyperboreans. On his journey he passed through Italy, saw
Pythagoras and thought him very like the god whose priest he
was. He was convinced, by most sacred tokens which he saw in
Pythagoras and which he had, as a priest, foreseen, that this was
no other: not a human being resembling the god, but really
Apollo. He returned to Pythagoras an arrow, which he had
brought when he left the temple as a help against difficulties he
might meet on his lengthy wanderings. Riding on the arrow, he
crossed impassable places — rivers, marshes, swamps,
mountains and the like; and by speaking to it, so the story goes,
he could achieve purifications and drive away plagues and
tempest from from the cities which asked his help.

(92) In Lakedaimon, at least, there was no plague after the
purification he carried out, thought the land had often before
been afflicted because its situation is so unhealthy: Mount
Taygetos looms above and the heat is stifling. Knossos in Crete
was the same, and there are other testimonies to the power of
Abaris. When Pythagoras received the arrow, he did not think it
strange, or ask why Abaris gave it to him, but — like one who is
truly a god — privately took Abaris aside and showed him his
golden thigh, as a token that he was not deceived. He also told
him exactly what was deposited in the temple, giving him
sufficient proof that he had not guessed wrong, and added that
he had come for the welfare and benefit of humanity. For that
reason he was in human form, so that people should not think
the presence of a superior being strange and disturbing, and run
away from his teaching. He told Abaris to stay there and help in
the amendment of those who came, and to share the gold he had
collected with those companions who had been led by reason to
confirm in action the precept “friends have all in common”. (93)
Abaris remained, and, as I said, Pythagoras taught him natural

distinguished, like their southern counterparts the Ethiopians, for piety:
the gods acknowledged this by feasting with them, and when Apollo was
not at Delphi this was one reason for his absence. For Abaris (140-1,
147, 215-9) see J.D.P.Bolton, Aristeas Of Proconnesus (1962) esp. 157-8.
Apollo is an archer, hence the arrow; Abaris’s travels may be an image

42

science and theology in summary form. Instead of divination by
inspection of sacrifices he taught him divination by numbers,
which he thought purer, more divine, and more closely connected
with the heavenly numbers of the gods. He also taught Abaris
other practices suited to him.

But, to return to the reason for this story, Pythagoras
sought to instruct people in different ways, according to the
nature and capacity of each one. Not all these ways have been
handed down, and it would be difficult to go through all the ways
that are remembered. (94) So let us go through a few, the best
known examples of Pythagorean training, and the records of the
standard practices of those men.

20 The special practices of Pythagorean philosophy; how he
handed them down and how he exercised each new generation
embarking on philosophy.

He first considered, in testing people, whether they could
“hold their peace” (that was his expression), and whether they
could learn all they heard and keep it safe and secret; then
whether they were modest. He showed more concern for silence
than for speech. He considered everything else too, lest they
should be volatile or uncontrolled in giving way to passions and
desires, and he was particularly interested in how they dealt
with anger and desire, whether they were ambitious for victory
or honour, and whether they were quarrelsome or friendly. If,
after careful scrutiny, he thought they had good characters, he
looked at their ability to learn and their memory: could they
quickly and clearly follow what was said, did they show
contentment and self-discipline in their studies? (95) He also
considered their natural tendency to gentleness (he called it
“arrangement”), for he thought a savage temper was hostile to a

for the flight of the soul apart from the body (Bolton ch.7). On the theory
that both Abaris and P. were shamans, see Philip 159-62. For P. as
theophany of Apollo see on 5-8. The golden thigh is discussed by Burkert
LS 159-60: probably the best explanation is that visitors to the
underworld are wounded or branded in the thigh, but P. can make the
journey safely. On divination see 68-70n.

43

programme such as his, bringing in its train lack of
modesty,shamelessness, lack of control, untimely action,
difficulty in learning, rejection of authority, dishonour, and their
consequences; from mildness and gentleness come the opposite.
So he investigated all this in his testing, and trained his
disciples to achieve these things, and selected those suited to the
benefits of his wisdom and tried to lead them on to knowledge in
this way. But if he saw that someone was not suited, he expelled
him as a stranger and an alien.

21 The daily regime which Pythagoras established and handed
on to his followers for careful observance; some precepts in
accordance with the practices.

I shall go on to the regime, occupying the whole day, which
Pythagoras handed on to his followers. This is what was done, in
accordance with his instructions, by those who followed where he
led:

(96) They took a morning walk, alone, and in places where
peace and quiet were appropriate, where there were shrines or
sacred groves or other delights of the heart. They thought it
wrong to meet people before one’s own soul is stable and one’s
mind adjusted, and this tranquillity, they thought, helped to
settle the mind, whereas it is disturbing to get up and
immediately push one’s way through crowds. So all the
Pythagoreans always chose the places most suited to sanctity.
Only after the morning walk did they meet each other, preferably
in sanctuaries, but otherwise in similar places. They used this
time for teaching, study and the amendment of character.

(97) After this period of study they turned to the care of the
body. Most were oiled and ran races; a smaller number wrestled
in the gardens and groves, some jumped with weights or shadow
boxed; they chose the exercises which best promoted physical
strength. For lunch they had bread with honey or honeycomb,
but they took no wine during the day. After lunch they were

97 Oil: used by athletes to protect the skin, and make it easier to scrape
off dust.

44

concerned with the management of the community, and also with
the affairs of outsiders through the prescription of laws: they were
willing to deal with all administrative questions in the afternoon.
When evening came, they went for walks again, but not in private
as they did in the morning: they walked in twos or threes,
recalling what they had learnt and exercising themselves in their
admirable practices. (98) After the walk they took a bath, then
went to their mess: not more than ten people ate together. When
the fellow-diners met, there were libations and offerings of incense
and frankincense. Then they began dinner, so as to finish before
sunset. They had wine, barley-bread and wheat bread, a side-dish,
cooked and raw vegetables; meat, from sacrificial animals, was set
out, but they rarely had fish or seafood — some of it, for various
reasons, they thought was not good to eat. (99) After this dinner
there were libations, then reading: the custom was for the
youngest to read, and the eldest to decide what should be read and
how. Before they left, the wine-steward poured them a libation,
and when they had made it the eldest instructed them as follows:
“Do not harm or destroy a cultivated plant which bears fhiit, and
do not harm or destroy any living creature which is not harmful to
the human race. (100) Moreover, think and speak as you ought
about the races of gods, spirits and heroes, and likewise about
your parents and benefactors; help the law and fight lawlessness.”
When this was said, each one went home. They wore clean white
clothes and used clean white bedclothes: these were linen, as they
did not use fleeces. They disapproved of hunting and did not use it
as a form of exercise. These, then, were the instructions given to
the mass of the Pythagoreans for their daily life, food and
occupations.

98 “Side-dish” translates Greek opson, which means whatever was
available to eat with the basic bread - usually meat, but with
Pythagoreans that could not be assumed.

100 Gods, spirits and heroes: see 16n. “Help the law”: Delatte Pol 49-50
thinks this required acting as informer, as in Plato’s Laws. White linen
clothes were worn by those preparing for initiation, so Pythagoreans
lived always in readiness (Burkert LS 190-1); cf.l53,155.

45

22 Education by the Pythagorean precepts referring to life and
human concerns.

(101) Another kind of education has been handed down: that
given by Pythagorean precepts, including those referring to life
and human concerns. I shall give here a few of the many. They
ordained that conflict and quarrelling should be abolished from
true friendship: from all friendship if possible, but at least from
that for one’s father and one’s elders, and likewise for one’s
benefactors. If a fit of anger, or some other passion, produces a
lasting conflict or quarrel with such people, it damages the
existing bond of friendship. Irritation and exasperation should
occur as little as possible in friendship: this will come about if
both parties know how to give way and to control their tempers,
but the younger, and the one who holds any of the offices
mentioned, should particularly do so. Older men should give
younger ones correction and advice (they call it “tuning”) only
with the greatest tact and circumspection, and affectionate
concern should be very obvious in those giving the advice: that
way it will be suitable and beneficial. (102) One should never
break faith in a friendship, whether in jest or earnest: it is
difficult to restore the bond to health once falsity has affected the
characters of the supposed friends. One should not renounce a
friendship because of misfortune, or any other life-event which
cannot be prevented; the only valid reason for renouncing a
friend and a friendship is great and incorrigible vice. Such, then,
was their method of amendment by precepts concerning all the
virtues and all aspects of life.

23 The preparation for philosophy through symbols and secret
conveying of beliefs, handed down as education only to those who
know, in accordance with the practice of the Egyptians and the
most ancient Greek theologians.

101 “Pythagorean precepts” (Puthagorikai apophaseis) was the title of
the book by Aristoxenos (see on 233) which is probably the source for
101-2, 174-6,180-3, 200-13, 230-3. Fragpuents are collected by F.Wehrli,
Aristoxenos (1945, in German).

46

(103) But the most necessary form of teaching, for
Pythagoras, was by symbols. Almost all Greeks were
enthusiastic about this kind of teaching, because it is of very
great antiquity; the Egyptians gave it its most subtle form and
highest status. In the same way Pythagoras also valued it
greatly, as may be seen by those who can perceive the meaning
and unspoken content of the Pythagorean symbols, and can
realise how much rightness and truth is in them once they are
freed from the concealment of their riddling form, and how well
their simple and straightforward transmission suits the
greatness, indeed the closeness to god which surpasses human
understanding, of these philosophers. (104) This style was
employed by those of Pythagoras’ school, especially the earliest
members, Pythagoras’ contemporaries, who in youth studied
with him in his old age: Philolaos, Eurytos, Charondas, Zaleukos,
Bryson, the elder Archytas, Aristaios, Lysis, Empedokles,
Zalmoxis, Epimenides, Milon, Leukippos, Alkmaion, Hippasos,
Thymarides and all their associates, a multitude of famous and
outstanding men. In their conversations and discussions, their
notes and records, and even in all their published work (most of
which still survives today), they did not use common, vulgar,
ordinary lang^uage, which could be superficially understood by
anyone who heard it, in an attempt to make what they said easy
to follow. Instead, they kept Pythagoras’ rule of “holding your
peace” about the divine mysteries, using secret devices to exclude
the uninitiated and protecting their exchanges of speech and
writing by the use of symbols. (105) Unless one can interpret the
symbols, and understand them by careful exposition, what they
say would strike the chance observer as absurd — old wives’

104 Some of these are discussed in other notes: Philolaos 199, Eurytos
139, Charondas and Zaleukos 33, Archytas 127, Lysis 75, Empedokles
64-7, Zalmoxis 173, Epimenides 5-8, Milon 249, Hippasos 80. Leukippos
is probably the mid C5 BC atomist philosopher from Elea in southern
Italy (KRS XV); Alkmaion of Kroton (DL 8.83) was a medical
philosopher of the early C5 BC, who also had close contacts with
Pythagoreans (KRS 338-9). Thymarides recurs at 145 and 239, Aristaios
and Bryson only in the list at 267. For symbols, see 82-6n.

47

tales, full of nonsense and idle talk. But once they are deciphered
as symbols should be, and become clear and transparent instead
of obscure to outsiders, they impress us like utterances of the
gods or Delphic oracles, revealing an astounding intellect and
having a supernatural influence on those lovers of learning who
have understood them. It will be helpful to mention a few, to
illustrate this method of teaching. “One should not enter a
shrine, or worship at all, while on the way to somewhere else;
not even on finding oneself outside the temple doors. Sacrifice
and worship barefoot. Leave the highway and use the footpaths.
Do not discuss Pythagorean matters without a light.” This, then,
is a brief sketch of teaching by symbols.

24 The foods Pythagoras did not eat, and those he forbade to
his disciples; various rules on this applying to the lives of
individuals, and the reasons for them.

(106) A well-ordered diet makes a great contribution to the
best education, so let us consider his rules about this. He banned
all foods which are windy and cause disturbance, and
recommended and advised the use of those which settle and
sustain the state of the body; that is why he thought even millet
a suitable food. He also banned everything unacceptable to the
gods, because it leads us away from growing like the gods. But,
for a different reason, he insisted on abstinence from what is
considered holy, because such things deserve honour and are not
for common human use. He recommended precautions against
foods which impede divination or the purity and holiness of the
spirit or the maintenance of temperance and virtue. (107) He

106-9 These and other ancient arguments for vegetarianism are
discussed by D.Dombrowski, The Philosophy Of Vegetarianism (1984).
Mallow (109): for “s 3 Tnpathy” see 68-70n; I. Protrepticus 21.38 (p.l25
Pistelli) says it is heUotropic. It is also a food-plant which grows without
cultivation - a gift of the gods - and was used in recipes for suppressing
hunger and thirst: D4tienne GA 47; recipes in Porphyry, Life 34.
Protrepticus 21.33 (p.l24 P) says the erythrinos fish is named from
erythros, “red”, and connotes the blush of conscious ignorance. Beans:
see 61n.

48

also rejected anything which obstructs lucidity, making turbid
the purity of the soul especially as regards images seen in sleep.
These were his general rules on food, but privately, for those
philosophers who had reached the most sublime heights of
knowledge, he ruled out once for all those foods which are
unnecessary and unjust, telling them never to eat any living
creature, drink wine, sacrifice living things to the gods or hurt
them in any way: they were to be treated with scrupulous justice.

(108) That is how he lived himself, abstaining from animal food
and worshipping at bloodless altars, and in his eagerness that
others should not destroy the creatures which share our nature,
taming fierce animals and educating them by words and actions,
never punishing and hurting them. He also instructed the
“legislators” among the civil servants to abstain from living
creatures, because, if they wished to act with perfect justice, they
must do no wrong to fellow-creatures. How could they persuade
others to act justly if they themselves were caught in acts of
greed? Animals are akin to us, sharing life and basic
constituents and composition, linked in a kind of brotherhood.

(109) Other students, whose life was not entirely pure and holy
and philosophic, were allowed to eat some animal food, though
even they had fixed periods of abstinence. He also forbade them
to eat the heart or the brain, and told all Pythagoreans to
abstain from these, for these are the governing organs and, as it
were, the seats and abodes of thought and life: their nature is
that of the divine reason and he declared them sacred. They were
not allowed to eat mallow either, because it is the first sign of the
sympathy between heavenly and earthly beings, or the blacktail
fish, because it belongs to the gods of the underworld, or the
erythrinos fish for other such reasons. “Abstain from beans” has
many reasons, sacred, natural and concerned with the soul. He
made other regulations similar to these, aiming to lead people on
the path to virtue by starting with their diet.

25 How he educated people through music and songs, at special
times, and when they were troubled by passions; how he purified

49

them from diseases of body and soul by music, and how he
performed the purifications.

(110) He held that music too made a great contribution to
health, if properly used: he took this form of purification very
seriously, calling it “healing by music”. In the spring he engaged
in singing like this; a lyre-player was seated in the centre, and
those who were good at singing sat round him in a circle and
sang, to his accompaniment, paeans, which they thought raised
their spirits and established inner harmony and rhythm. They
also, at other times, used music as a kind of medicine. (Ill)
There were songs designed for afflictions of the soul, to counter
depression and anguish of mind (some of Pythagoras’ most
helpful inventions); others to deal with anger and bursts of
indignation and every disturbance of that kind of soul; and yet
another kind of music devised to coiinter desires. They also used
dancing. As a musical instrument, they used the lyre, because
Pythagoras thought the aulos had an assertive tone, suited to
large gatherings but not to cultivated people. They also used
selected passages of Homer and Hesiod to improve the soul.

(112) It is told of Pythagoras that once, with a solemn tune
played on an aulos, he calmed the frenzy of a lad from
Tauromenion who was roaring drunk and had gone at night to
serenade his girlfriend by his rival’s door. He was about to set it
on fire, for the Phrygian flute-music had lit the spark and fanned
it, but Pythagoras soon put a stop to that. (He was out early,
engaged in astronomy.) He told the flute-player to change to a
solemn tune, which promptly calmed the young man down, and
Pythagoras sent him peacefully home — though a little earlier
he had not only rejected Pythagoras’ advice but would not endure
it, telling him furiously to go to hell just for being there. (113)
Empedokles did something similar. A young man had already

111-2 Phrygian flute-music: both the instrument (the aulos,
conventionally called a double-flute but sounding more like an oboe) and
the musical mode were associated wdth the ecstatic cults which altered
mental states. I. discusses the effect in On The Mysteries 3.9; see further
Sheppard p. 113-5. Use of Homer and Hesiod: cf.l64, and 9n.

50

drawn his sword on Empedokles’ host Anchitos, who had been a
judge at the public trial of the young man’s father and
condemned him to death. The young man was in such a turmoil
and indignation that he had rushed to stab the man who had
condemned his father as if Anchitos had actually murdered him.
Empedokles, as he sat, tuned his lyre, played a soothing, calming
melody, and struck up Homer’s famous “soother of grief and
wrath, oblivion of all evils”, and saved his host Anchitos from
death, and the young man from committing murder. (114) This
youth is reported to have become, after this, Empedokles’ best
pupil.

The entire school of Pythagoras practised what was called
“arrangement” or “composition” or “treatment”, converting states
of soul to their opposite by the beneficial use of appropriate
songs. When they went to bed they used particular songs and
special tunes to clear their minds of the day’s troubles and
preoccupations, and to make their sleep calm and visited by few
dreams, and those pleasant ones. When they got up they used
different songs to get rid of sloth and torpor; sometimes they
used tunes without words. They also healed some afflictions and
diseases by, quite literally, singing over them: that, in all
probability, is how the word “incantation” came into general use.

This, then, was Pythagoras’ most beneficial method of
correcting human character and lifestyle by music. (115) And
since our exposition of his educational wisdom has reached this
point, it will be advisable to deal next with a related subject: his
invention of the science and principles of harmony. Let us go
back a little,

26 How Pythagoras discovered the principles of harmony, and
handed that science on to his followers.

He was once engaged in intense thought about whether he
could find some precise scientific instrument to assist the sense

113 Odyssey 4.221, describing an Egyptian drug, a gift to Helen.

115-21 An untypically detailed account of music theory, taken from
Nicomachos, Encheiridion 6-7 (a translation will appear in Andrew

51

of hearing, as compass and ruler and the measurement of angles
assist the sight and scales and weights and measures assist
touch. Providentially, he walked passed a smithy, and heard the
hammers beating out the iron on the anvil. They gave out a
melody of sounds, harmonious except for one pair. He recognised
in them the consonance of octave, fifth and fourth, and saw that
what lay between the fourth and fifth was in itself discordant,
but was essential to fill out the greater of the intervals.(116)
Rejoicing in the thought that the gods were helping on his
project, he ran into the smithy, and discovered by detailed
experiments that the difference of sound was in relation to the
weight of the hammers, not the force used by those hammering,
the shape of the hammer heads, or any change in the iron as it
was beaten out. So he carefully selected weights precisely
equivalent to the weight of the hammers, and went home. From
a single rod, fixed into the walls across a corner (in case rods
with peculiar properties made, or were even thought to make, a
difference), he suspended four strings, of the same material,
length and thickness, evenly twisted. To the end of each string he
attached one of the weights, ensuring that the length of the
strings was exactly equal. (117) Then he struck the strings two
at a time, and found that the different pairs gave exactly the
concords already mentioned. The string stretched by the biggest
weight, together with that stretched by the smallest, gave an
octave: the biggest weight weighed twelve units and the smallest
six. So the octave, as the weights showed, was a ratio of two to
one. The biggest weight, together with the second smallest which
weighed eight units, gave a fifth: thus he showed that the fifth is

Barker, Greek Musical Writings II ch.lO, forthcoming). Musicology was
essential to the Pythagoreans because they argued (cf.82n) that the
same fundamental ratios, discovered by P., governed music and the
universe. It was also important as a route from the standard
educational system to the Pythagorean understanding of truth. I’s
Pythagorean sequence included a volume on music (120; O’Meara 86-7).
His exposition here is confusing, because it moves between the relative
sizes of the weights and the number of units they weighed, and also
because it has to use, for what we express as ratios, the Greek words for
“twice as much” (two to one), “half as much again” (three to two) and

52

a ratio of three to two, like the weights. The biggest weight
together with the second biggest, which was heavier than the
remaining weights and weighed nine units, gave a fourth, its
ratio also corresponding to that of the weights. So he realised at
once that the fourth is a ratio of four to three, whereas the ratio
of the second heaviest to the lightest was three to two (for that is
the relationship of nine to six). (118) Similarly, the second
smallest (weighing eight units) was in the ratio of four to three
with that weighing six units, and in a ratio of two to three with
that weighing twelve units. What lies between fifth and fourth
(that is, the amount by which the fifth is greater than the fourth)
was thus established as a ratio of nine to eight. It was also
established that an octave can be made up in one of two ways: as
a conjunction of fifth and fourth (since the ratio of two to one is a
conjunction of three to two and four to three, as in 12 : 8 : 6) or
the other way round, as a conjunction of fourth and fifth (since
the ratio of two to one is a conjunction of four to three and three
to two, as in 12 : 9 : 6).

Having worn out hand and hearing by the use of the
suspended weights, and established through them the ratio of
the positions, he ingeniously replaced the point at which all the
strings were attached — the rod across the corner — with the
rod at the base of the instrument, which he named the“string-
stretcher”; and he replaced the pull of the different weights with
the corresponding tightening of the pegs at the top. (119) Taking
this as a basis, as a standard which could not mislead, he
extended his experiments to different kinds of instrument,
testing bowls, reed pipes, pan-pipes, monochords, trigona and

“one-third as much again” (four to three). The ratios are correct,
although the experiment (as rival analysts knew in antiquity) does not
work. Pieces of metal do not vibrate in direct proportion to their weight,
and difference of pitch is not in direct proportion to difference of tension.
The ratios P. discovered are most easily seen in the length of a string, or
of the column of air in a wind-instrument, in relation to the sound
produced: for instance, a string stopped half-way along its length
produces a sound an octave higher than the same string unstopped. The
Greek for “octave” is dia pason, “through all the [strings]” of an eight-

53

others. In all he found the understanding reached through
number to be harmonious and unchanged.

He named “furthest” the note which was associated with six,
“middle” that which was associated with eight (and in the ratio
of four to three with the first), “next to middle” that associated
with nine, which was one tone higher than the “middle” and in
the ratio of nine to eight with it, and “nearest” that associated
with twelve. He filled up the gaps between, in the diatonic scale,
with notes in the proper ratios. Thus he made the octachord, or
eight-string sequence, subservient to concordant numbers: the
ratios of two to one, three to two and four to three, and the
difference between the last two, nine to eight. (120) And thus he
discovered the sequence from lowest to highest note which
proceeds by a kind of natural necessity in the diatonic scale. He
also articulated the chromatic and enharmonic scales from the
diatonic, as it will be possible to show when we come to discuss
music. The diatonic scale has as its stages, in a natural
progression, semitone, tone, tone, making up the interval of a
fourth; a group of two tones and the so-called “half-tone”. Then,
with the addition of another tone, the “intercalated” tone, the
interval of a fifth is formed: a group of three tones and a half¬
tone. In succession to this comes a semitone and a tone and a
tone, another interval of a fourth (that is, another ratio of four to
three). In the older seven-note sequence (the heptachord), all

stringed instrument (octachord). Musical analysis usually began with
the tetrachord, a group of four notes; different combinations of intervals
making up the tetrachord gave different scales, the most usual being the
diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic. Tbnes, semitones and scales were
not the same as the modem versions. A octachord could be analysed as a
tetrachord and a pentachord in conjunction, either way round (Greek
synaphe) or as two tetrachords with a tone between them (Greek
diazeuxis). I. argues that the Pythagorean ratios fit either analysis. They
do not fit the enharmonic scales, and Archytas added more ratios to
make the analysis possible. For further information on music theory and
practice see Andrew Barker, Greek Musical Writings I (1984): I am much
indebted to him. The trigonon (119) was a triangular-framed harp: its
strings differed in length, not in thickness or tension (Barker o.c. 197
n.47).

54

notes which were four apart, from the lowest up, made the
interval of a fourth together, and the semitone moved from the
first to the middle to the third place in the group of four notes
(tetrachord) being played. (121) In the Pythagorean octachord, it
makes no difference whether there is a conjunction of a
tetrachord and a pentachord, or a disjunction of two tetrachords
separated by a tone: the sequence, from the lowest note up, is
such that all notes five apart make the interval of a fifth
together, and the semitone occupies four places in succession:
first, second, third, fourth.

This, then, is how he discovered the theory of music,
systematised it and handed it on to his disciples for every good
purpose.

27 The civic and communal benefits he and his followers gave
humanity, by word and deed, constitutions and legislation, and
other admirable practices.

(122) Many political activities of his associates have also
won praise. They say the Krotoniates were once seized with a
passion for expensive funeral processions and burials. One of the
Pythagoreans told the people that he had heard Pythagoras
speak about the gods, saying that the Olympians considered the
disposition of the sacrificers, not the amount of the sacrifice, but
the gods of the underworld were the reverse: having fewer
possessions, they were pleased by dirges and laments, continual
libations at the tomb, grave-offerings and expensive sacrifices.
(123) Hades is called Pluto (the Rich One) because he likes
acquiring things. Those who pay him simple honours he leaves in

122-6 These stories leave unclear the exact status of Pythagoreans in
the government of the South Italian cities (129). Many modern scholars
envisage a hetaireia, a group of “companions” who are personal and
political allies, and who are seen by outsiders as a faction within the
governing class or a conspiracy against it (254, 259, 260): Minar ch.2; on
hetaireia as a concept see Barry S.Strauss, Athens After The
Peloponnesian War: Class, Faction And Policy (1986) ch.l. At the time
of the revolt against the Pythagoreans (see on 248-64) the “friends of Kylon”

55

the upper world for a long time, but he is for ever dragging down
one of those inclined to unrestrained mourning, so as to get the
honours which are paid him at tombs. This advice caused his
audience to think that they could ensure their own safety by
moderation in misfortune, whereas lavish expenditure would
make them all die before their time.

(124) Another Pythagorean was made arbitrator in a
dispute where there were no witnesses. He took each of the
litigants in turn for a walk along the road, stopped by a grave
and remarked that the man lying there had been exceptionally
moral. One of the litigants called down blessings on the dead
man; the other said “Much good it did him.” He thought poorly of
this, and inclined to believe the one who praised virtue.

Another, in a major arbitration, persuaded one of the parties
to offer four talents, and the other to accept two. Then he decided
for a payment of three talents, and each felt as if he had been
given a talent.

Two men, with malicious intent, had deposited a cloak with
one of the market-women, and told her not to give it to either
unless both were present. Then they cheated: one of them took
the cloak, and claimed that the other, who was nearby, had
agreed. Then the second man, who had not approached her, laid
information and told the magistrates the original agreement.
The Pythagorean who took the case said the woman would keep
the agreement — if both men were present.

(125) Two others appeared to be firm friends, but fell victim
to unvoiced suspicion when a man seeking favour with one told

form a t 3 rpical hetaireia, linked by kinship and (temporary) common purpose.
The Pythagoreans, said to number over 300 (254) have a much stronger
bond (230-9; 127-8 for international links): shared lifestyle, common cult of
the Muses, commitment of property, tokens of recognition, possibility of
expulsion. Many scholars are reminded of the Freemasons (though
Pythagoreans, unlike Masons, must have been recognisable). I., like other
philosophers of the later Roman empire, was interested in political
philosophy only in terms of social harmony (cf.CH 213, 274): debates on
forms of government had no immediate relevance, and the active life was
inferior to that of theoria (see 58-9n) and was undertaken only as a duty.

56

him his wife had been seduced by the other. It so happened that
a Pythagorean went into the smithy, where the man who thought
he had been wronged was showing the smith a blunt knife and
reproaching him for not putting a keener edge on it. The
Pythagorean suspected that he was planning to attack the man
who had been slandered, and said “That knife has a keener edge
than anything — except slander”. This made the man stop and
reflect, and refrain from a hasty crime against his friend, whom
he had already summoned, and who was at his house.

(126) In the shrine of Asklepios, a foreigner dropped a belt
containing gold. Custom forbade picking up anything which had
fallen to the ground. The foreigner complained: a Pythagorean
told him to take out the gold, which had not fallen on the ground,
but leave the belt, which had.

This is said to have happened in Kroton (though ignorant
people set it in other places): there was a festival, and some
cranes flew over the theatre. One of the visitors who had come by
sea remarked to the man sitting next to him, “See the
witnesses?” A Pythagorean heard, and took them to the office of
the Thousand, suspecting — as indeed they found by questioning
the slaves — that the cranes had flown over the ship and seen
some people thrown overboard.

Two others, it seems, fell out: they were recent adherents of
Pythagoras. The younger came first to make it up, saying they
should not take the problem to anyone else, but themselves
forget their anger. The other said he was delighted with what he
had heard, except that he was ashamed because he had not, as
the elder, made the first approach.

127 For Italian Pythagoreans see 152n. The story of Phintias (also known as
Pythias) and Damon is told at 234-6, that of Kleinias and Proros at 239.
Axhytas was seven times general of Ihras Clhrentum) in southern Italy in the
360s, DL 8.79. He campaigned against South Italian peoples (cf.l97)and
defended Taras against rival Greek cities, Plato stayed with him, and the
"Seventh Letter”, which some scholars think is by Plato, shows Plato mediating
between Archytas and Dionysius II of Syracuse(see 189n). Arch34:as is a
favourite candidate for pseudepigrapha (collected in Thesleif 1965.2-48).

57

(127) There are also stories about Phintias and Damon,
Plato and Archytas, Kleinias and Proros; another is that
Euboulos of Messene, sailing home, was captured by Etruscans
and taken to Etruria. Nausithoos the Etruscan was a
Pythagorean and recognised him as a follower of Pythagoras: he
got rid of the pirates and took Euboulos, in perfect safety, to
Messene.

(128) The Carthaginians planned to maroon over five
thousand men, who were serving in their army, on a desert
island. Miltiades of Carthage saw among them Posides of Argos;
both were Pythagoreans. He went up to him and, without telling
him what was to happen, advised him to flee to his own country
as soon as possible. A ship came past: he got Posides on board,
paid his fare and saved him from danger.

In short, if anyone were to tell all the stories of how
Pythagoreans behaved to one another, it would take too long for
the scale and the occasion of this book. (129) So, instead, I shall
move on to those Pythagoreans who engaged in politics or held
office. They watched over the laws and administered some
Italian cities, giving excellent advice on what they undertook,
but having no share in the public revenues. There were many
slanders about them, but Pythagorean virtue and the cities’ own
preference prevailed for a time, so that they still wanted them to
administer civic affairs. At that time, it seems, the best
constitutions were to be found in Italy and Sicily. (130)
Charondas of Katana, who has the reputation of being one of the
best legislators, was a Pythagorean; Zaleukos and Timares of
Lokroi, renowned as legislators, were Pythagoreans; and
Phytios, Theokles, Helikaon and Aristokrates, who drafted the
Rhegian constitutions (both the “gymnasiarchic” and the
Theoklean), are said to have been Pythagoreans. They excelled
in the practices and customs followed by the cities of those
regions at that time.

They say Pythagoras also invented the whole system of

130 Legislators: see Dunbabin (33n) 68-75; Delatte Pol II ch.6. Rational
and irrational impulses of the soul: see Long 171-5.

58

political education, when he said that none of the things in
existence is pure. Earth partakes of fire, fire of water, air of both
and both of air; similarly, good partakes of bad, just of unjust,
and so on. (On the same principle, reason has impulses in both
directions: there are two movements both of body and of soul, one
irrational and one purposive.) He constructed, as it were, three
lines, representing forms of government, and connected them at
the ends to make a right-angled triangle: one side has the nature
of the epitritos, the hypotenuse measures five, and the third is in
the middle of the other two. (131) If we calculate the angles at
which the lines meet, and the squares on each side, we have an
excellent model of a constitution. Plato appropriated this idea,
when he expressly mentioned, in the Republic, the first two
numbers in the ratio of four to three which join with the fifth to
make the two harmonies. Pythagoras, they say, also trained people
in moderation and in finding the mean, and in how to make every

130-1 A confusing passage; cf.l79 below. The figure is a scalene right-
angled triangle; the first instance of this in the number-series is the
famous 3, 4, 5 triangle. The problem is that I. does not simply name
these numbers. It would be easiest if the side “having the nature of the
epitritos”, that is the ratio four to three, measured three units. The
second side is described as pente toiauta dunamene; dunamene, which
usually means “the square root”, can have the meaning “hypotenuse”
(see LSJ), and the phrase could mean “the hypotenuse [measuring] five
such [units]”. Then the third side, between the other two, would
measure four units. Unfortunately, the number which “has the nature of
the epitritos” is usually four (Delatte Pol 60-3, who offers an emended
version of the second side but ignores the third). The interpretation is
easier. By “P.’s theorem”, the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the
sum of the squares on the other two sides (see Burkert LS 427-30 for a
possible method of calculation). So numbers which at first sight are
unequal (or incommensurable) are connected in harmonious
relationships. If the numbers are put together at a right angle, itself an
image of rightness and equality, it is possible to achieve “proportional”
or “geometric” equality: the squares are an image of political power
proportionate to the original inequality of the lines. Democrats
preferred “arithmetical” equality: one man, one vote. Anti-democrats
said this was simply to declare that inequalities are equal (Aristotle,
Politics 3.9; Plato, Republic 558c). The Plato reference is Republic546b:
see J.Adam, The Republic of Plato II (1902)264-312.

59

life happy with some principal good, and generally found out how
to choose what is good for us and the appropriate actions.

(132) It is said that the Krotoniates dismissed their
concubines, and had no further connection with any women other
than their lawful wives. Deino was the wife of Brontinos, a
Pythagorean, a woman of wise and exceptional soul. She made
the famous and admirable remark (which some attribute to
Theano) that a woman who has slept with her own husband
should sacrifice that same day. The women of Kroton came to her
and asked her to persuade Pythagoras to speak to their
husbands about self-restraint in relation to them. This is in fact
what happened: she promised, Pythagoras spoke, and the
Krotoniates were persuaded to abandon the general laxity.

(133) Ambassadors came fi-om Sybaris to Kroton to request
the return of some exiles. Pythagoras saw that one of them had
murdered one of his friends, and gave him no answer. The man asked
again, wanting to share his conversation, but he said there was no
response for people like that. This made some people think that
Pythagoras was Apollo. Let us then take all these stories, and what
we said a little earlier about the overthrow of tyrants and the freeing
of the cities in Italy and Sicily and many more, as indications of what
Pythagoras contributed to civic good.

28 His divine and awe-inspiring actions; matters concerning
piety, which bring great benefit to human beings through the
goodwill of the gods, and which reached the human race through
Pythagoras.

(134) From now on let us no longer deal with everything
together, but divide his actions into examples of separate virtues,
and celebrate these. Let us begin, as the custom is, with the

132 cp.55.

133 “No response”: the Greek verb, themisteuein, is used of the
pronouncements of an orauile. cf.l77.

134-240 The sections organised by Virtue (piety 134-56, wisdom 157-66,
justice 167-86, self-control 187-212, courage 214-28, friendship 229-40)
recycle material I. has already used, but with additions.

60

gods, and try to show ourselves and celebrate his holiness and its
astonishing effects. One matter I have already mentioned may
stand as proof: he knew his own soul and from where it had come
to his body, and his previous lives, and gave clear evidence of
this. And here is another proof: he was once crossing the river
Nessos, with several companions, and spoke to it; the river
replied in a deep, penetrating voice, audible to all, “Greetings,
Pythagoras”. And on one and the same day he was in
Metapontion in Italy and Tauromenion in Sicily, talking publicly
with his followers in each place. Almost everyone is sure of this,
though there are many miles of land and sea between, which
cannot be crossed even in very many days.

(135) It is widely known that he showed his golden thigh to
Abaris the Hyperborean, who had guessed that he was Apollo of
the Hyperboreans whose priest Abaris was, to confirm that
Abaris was right and not deceived. There are thousands of other
comparable, and consistent, stories about him, even more godlike
and astonishing than these: infallible predictions of earthquakes,
the speedy averting of epidemics, the immediate lulling of violent
gales and hailstorms and the stilling of waves in rivers and the
sea so that his companions had an easy crossing. Empedokles of
Akragas, Epimenides of Crete and Abaris the Hyperborean
shared in these powers, and often themselves achieved the like.

(136) Their works are there to be seen; moreover, Empedokles
was known as Wind-Warder, Epimenides as Purifier, and Abaris
as Walker on Air because he crossed rivers and seas and
trackless land on the arrow given him by Hyperborean Apollo,
and that, in a sense, is walking on air. Some people think
Pythagoras too had the same experience when he talked on the
same day to his followers at Metapontion and at Tauromenion. It
is also said that he predicted an earthquake from the condition of
a well from which he drank, and foretold the sinking of a ship
then running before a following wind.

(137) Let these stand as evidence of his piety: I want now to
return to the principles of worship of the gods which were
established by Pythagoras and his successors. All their decisions

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about what to do or not to do aimed at being in accord with the
divine. This is the principle; all of life is so ordered as to follow
the god, and the rationale of this philosophy is that people
behave absurdly when they seek the good anywhere but from the
gods: it is like living in a monarchy, cultivating some citizen who
holds a lesser office and ignoring the ruler and king of all. That,
the Pythagoreans think, is what people do. Since God exists and
is lord of all, obviously we must ask our lord for what is good;
and since everyone gives good things to those they love and
delight in, and the opposite to those for whom they feel the
opposite, clearly we must do what does delight God.

(138) But it is not easy to know what that is, unless you can
find out by the god listening to you, or yourself listening to the
god, or through some divine technique. That is why the
Pythagoreans work at divination, for that is our only interpreter
of the mind of the gods. One who believes in the gods will think
this a proper concern of theirs; anyone who finds either
conviction silly will think both are.

Most of the prohibitions are derived from sacred rites,
because the Pythagoreans think they mean something and are
not inflated nonsense, but have their origin from a god. All
Pythagoreans are disposed to believe the stories told (for
instance) about Aristeas of Prokonnesos and Abaris the
Hyperborean and other such: they believe all such things were
done and themselves attempt many of them, and keep in
memory the stories which are thought to be fabulous, not
disbelieving anything which might lead to the divine.

(139) Eurytos is said to have told the story that a shepherd,
pasturing his flock at the grave of Philolaos, said he heard
someone singing: he had not disbelieved it, but asked “What was

138 I. thought there was a "divine technique”, namely theurgy, the
invocation of divine powers by the ritual use of words and symbolic
objects. See 68-70n, 147, and introduction n.4;esp. Shaw; for the late
antique debate about theurgy see Smith part II. Aristeas, like Abaris
(see refs. 91-3n), was a wonder-worker, whose soul could travel free from
his body.

139 Linus: like Orpheus, the legendary author of poems. For Philolaos

62

the tune?”. Both were Pythagoreans: Eurytos was Philolaos’
pupil. And they say someone told Pythagoras that he had
thought he was talking to his dead father in a dream, and asked
“What does that signify?” Pythagoras replied that it did not
signify anything, except that he was really talking to him. “It
does not signify anything that you are now talking to me: neither
does that.” In such matters they think those who disbelieve are
foolish, not themselves: it is not that some things are possible to
the god but some impossible, as the clever people suppose, but all
things are possible. This is the origin of the verses they say were
composed by Linus, but which may be Pythagorean:

We must expect everything:
nothing is beyond expectation.

All things are easy for Grod to fulfil,
nothing is impossible.

(140) They think the guarantee of their behefs is that it was no
ordinary man who first uttered them, but the god: one of the axioms
is “Who are you, Pythagoras?*. They say he was Hyperborean Apollo,
and their proofs are that in standing up in a contest he showed his
golden thigh and that he entertained Abaris the Hyperborean and
received firom him the arrow by which Abaris found his way. (141)
This Abaris is said to have come from the Hyperboreans, collecting
gold for the temple and predicting plague. He stayed in temples, and
was never seen to eat or drink anything. He is also said to have made
the “preventive” sacrifice among the Lacedaimonians, and that is
why there was never again a plague in Lakedaimon. Pythagoras,
then, had from Abaris the golden arrow he carried, without which he
could not find his way, and made him his disciple.

(142) At Metapontion, when some people wished they could
have what was in a boat sailing towards them, he said, “Well, youll
have a corpse among you” — and the boat proved to be carrying a
corpse. At Sybaris he caught and sent away the rou^-scaled snake.

see on 199; Eurytos apparently specified the numbers of man, horse etc.
(jjerhaps in pebble shapes: Philip 3^).

142 Eunapius 459 says I. once left the road because he knew, by powers of
divination, that a corpse had been carried along it. Dead bodies were a
religious pollution: Robert Parker, Miasma (1983) ch.2. P. predicted the

63

whose bite is fatal, and likewise in Etruria the httle snake whose bite
is fatal. In Kroton, they say, the white eagle stood still and let him
stroke it. When someone wanted to hear him, he said he would not
speak until some sign appeared: and after that the white she-bear
appeared in Kaulonia. And when a man was about to tell him of his
son’s death, he said it first.

(143) He made Myllias of Kroton remember that he was
Midas son of Grordios, and Myllias left for the mainland to carry
out his instructions about the tomb. They also say that the man
who bought his house and dug it up never dared to tell anyone
what he saw, but, in return for this sin, he was found temple¬
robbing in Kroton and executed; he was caught in the act of
stealing the golden beard which had fallen from the image.
These things, and others like them, are what they say as a
guarantee: as these are generally accepted, and it is impossible
for them to have happened to an ordinary human being, it must
be obvious, they think, that one should accept what he said as
coming from someone greater, not a mortal. Even the riddle, they
say, means this: (144) they have a saying “Humans are bipeds,
and birds, and a third besides” and the third is Pythagoras. His
love of truthfulness was reckoned to be like his piety. All
Pythagoreans were very scrupulous about oaths, remembering
Pythagoras’ precept:

Honour first the immortal gods, as the law commands,

respect an oath by them; and next the noble heroes.

One Pythagorean was required by law to take an oath, which he
would have sworn truly; but he chose to pay out three talents,
the penalty prescribed at law for failure to swear, for the sake of
maintaining the principle.

(145) They believed that nothing happens at random or by
chance, but by divine providence, especially to good and pious
people. This is confirmed by the story told by Androkydes, in his

appearance of the she-bear in Kaulonia (Burkert LS 142). 143 Midas
son of Gordios: the king of Phrygia with the “Midas touch” which turned
all to gold. It is not known what P.’s instructions were, or why the house
was dug up(a treasure-hunt?).

64

On the Pythagorean Symbols, about Thymaridas of Taras, a
Pythagorean. Circumstances took him away on a voyage; his
friends gathered to see him off and bid him godspeed, and one of
them said, as he embarked, “May all you want come to you from
the gods, Thymaridas!” He replied “Hush, let me rather want all
that comes to me from the gods”: he thought it greater wisdom
and better sense not to resist and kick against divine providence.
If it is asked where these men got so much piety, the answer is
that Pythagorean “number theology” has a clear precedent in the
works of Orpheus. (146) It is no longer disputed that Pythagoras
took his inspiration from Orpheus in composing his account of
the gods, which he called “holy” precisely because it was culled
from the inner mysteries of works of Orpheus. Most people say it
really was Pythagoras who wrote the book, but some famous and
trustworthy members of the school maintain it was Telauges,
from the notes left by Pythagoras to his daughter Damo, sister of
Telauges; after her death the notes were given to Bitale,

145 Providence was a difficulty for many late antique philosophers, because
contingent happenings cannot objects of knowledge, and therefore cannot be
known to the gods (see on 58-9). I. argued that knowledge depends on the
knowing subject, not on the object known, so the gods’ knowledge is as excellent
as the gods themselves, and holds temporal events in a timeless vision. See
Wallis 29-30. For I.’s confidence in divine government of the world, cf.215-9.
Androkydes is first dted Cl BC, but his date is unknown, de Vogel 168 argues for
a C4 BC doctor, physician to Alexander The Great, Philip 148-9 suspects a later
date.

146 Orphism, a range of doctrines and practices ascribed to the legendary
Thracian singer Orpheus, had much in common with F^hagoreanism. The
“Orphic Ufe” required purity and vegetarianism, and Orphic teaching included
rites of purification and concern for the afterlife. The traditions became
interwoven, and both claimed priority. See Burkert SD. I. wrote a commentary
on Orphic texts (Marinus, Life ofProdus 27). For P.’s book see 90n; Philip 136-8
and 193-4 on the common tradition. "The narrative about the gods” translates
the Greek hieros logos: see 90n. L(e)ibethra, in the foothills of Mount Olympus,
was a traditional site of Orpheus’s death. For Aglaophamos as initiating priest
see Burkerty47!cten< Mystery Cults (1987) 31, 33, 69-73. P. would authenticate
his teaching by reference to his own teacher, and by producing a hieros logos.
Kalliop)e is the Muse of epic poetry. Mount Pangaion, famous for gold-mines, is
in 'Thrace. For P.’s family (names vary) see Burkert LS114, Philip 187.

65

daughter of Damo, who was the same age as Telauges. Telauges
was Pythagoras’s son and Bitale’s husband.Pythagoras died
when he was very young, and he was left with his mother
Theano.

Now it is clear from this Sacred Book (also called On the
Gods) who gave Pythagoras his account of the gods. It reads
“This is the narrative about the gods by Pythagoras son of
Mnesarchos. I learnt this by taking part in the rites of Thracian
Libethra. Aglaophamos the initiating priest shared with me
what Orpheus son of Kalliope said, having learnt it from his
mother, on Mount Pangaion: Number is the eternal and
provident principle of heaven and earth and what is between,
and source of the continuing existence of divine persons, gods
and spirits.” (147) It is evident from these words that he derived
from the Orphics his concept of divine being as defined by
number. Through these same numbers he achieved his
astonishing predictions, and his worship of the gods was in
accordance with the numbers as being most closely related to
them. Here is an illustration (for we must adduce an action to
prove the truth of what is said). Abaris continued his accustomed
religious practices, and made prediction from sacrifices as all
barbarian peoples do. He used bird sacrifices especially, for they
think bird entrails are best for exact scrutiny. Pythagoras did not
want to destroy his zeal for truth, but did want to give him a
more reliable method which did not require bloodshed —
especially as he believed the cock to be sacred to the sun. So he
revealed to him the so-called “total truth” which is based on
mathematical knowledge.

(148) His faith in the gods was a fruit of his piety: he always
said that one should not disbelieve anything astonishing about
the gods or about divine teachings, for the gods can do anything:
and we must call divine the teachings — which must be believed
— handed down by Pythagoras. That is how his followers
believed: they accepted that he had not misled them in the
beliefs they held. So when a shepherd told Eurytos of Kroton,
pupil of Philolaos, that he had heard at midday the voice of

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Philolaos — who had died years before — coming from his tomb
as if he were singing, Eurytos said “Tell me, pray, what tune?”
And when someone asked Pythagoras himself what it signified
that he had dreamt his father, long since dead, was talking to
him, Pythagoras replied “Nothing; nor does it signify anything
that now you are talking to me.”

(149) He wore clean white clothes and used clean white
bedding, made of linen; he did not use fleeces. This custom he
handed on to his followers. He spoke as was fitting about the
greater ones, and at all times remembered and honoured the
gods: he made libation to the gods at dinner and ordained hymns
to the greater ones every day. He was interested in voices,
prophecies, oracles, all spontaneous occurrences.

(150) He sacrificed to the gods frankincense, millet, cakes,
honeycomb, myrrh and the other fragrances. Neither he nor any
other of the learned philosophers sacrificed any living thing, and
he told the “hearers” and the “civic” followers to sacrifice live
creatures only rarely: a cock, a lamb, some other young creature,
but not oxen. It is a further proof of his reverence for the gods
that he forbade all oaths in their names. Syllos, a Pythagorean of
Kroton, paid out money rather than swear an oath, though it
would have been a true oath. But there is a form of oath ascribed
to the Pythagoreans, since they were reluctant to name
Pjdihagoras (just as they were very sparing in their use of the
gods’ names) and indicated him by reference to his discovery of
the tetract:

“No, by him who discovered the Tetract of our wisdom,
the source which contains the springs of everlasting nature”.

(151) Pythagoras, then, in all respects — they say —
emulated Orpheus’s interpretation and composition, and
honoured the gods as Orpheus did, setting up carved and bronze
images, linking the gods not to human form but to the divine
foundations, in form and nature like all there is, as they
encompass all and take thought for all. Pythagoras also

151 The images were probably geometrical solids (cf.SSn, 247n.). I. wrote a
(lost) work on cult-images (agalmata), Larsen 60; he discusses images in

67

proclaimed their purifications and the rites ascribed to them,
having a most exact knowledge of them. His divine wisdom and
worship were, they say, a synthesis he made, having learnt some
things from the Orphics, some from the Egyptian priests, some
from the Chaldaeans and the magi, some from the rite at
Eleusis, and from Imbros and Samothrace and Lemnos, and
anything worth having from the common rites, and from the
Kelts and from Iberia.

(152) Pythagoras’ sacred book was also read among the
Latins — not to all or by all, but by those who were well-disposed
to learn about the good and who engaged in no shameful
practices. He said that we make three libations to the gods, and
Apollo gives his oracles from a tripod, because number first came
into being as a triad. We sacrifice to Aphrodite on the sixth day
because six is the first number to share the whole being of

On The Mysteries 3.28-9. The “Chaldae£ui oracles” were a collection allegedly
produced by one Julian the Chaldaean, and his son Julian the Theuigist, in the
mid C2 AD: see further Garth Fowden, Historia 36(1987)90-4): edition by E. des
Places, Les Oracles Chaldaiques (Paris 1971). Ttext and commentaries (by
Porphyry, I.- in at least 28 books - and Proclus) were earnestly studied in the
Athenian philosophical school of the C4-5 AD, as a sacred book in the Hellenic
tradition of Plato and Aristotle, rivalling the Christian scriptures. See H.Lewy
(1956, ed.2 M.Tardieu 1978) Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy: Mysticism,
Magic and Platonism in the Later Roman Empire-, H.D.Saffrey, Revue des
etudes augustiniennes 27 (1981)209-25. For Egyptian wisdom see 1^. Eleusisln
mainland Greece, was the archetypal “mystery cult”, devoted to Demeter and
her daughter Kore. The gods of Samothrace had secret names, but were
sometimes identified with the Kabeiroi of Lemnos, sons of Hephaistos; it was at
Samothrace that Cadmus married Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite,
a myth that must have appealed to Pythagoreans. Lemnos (and perhaps its
neighbour Imbros) and Samothrace both claimed pre-Greek “Pelasgian” origins.
See W. Burkert, Greek Religion (ET1985) 281-5. For the Kelts of tiie Mysterious
West see A Momigliano, Alien Wisdom (1975) ch.3. The C2 Christian writer
Hippolytus said P.’s follower Zalmoxis (173) converted the Druids: Refutation of
AH Heresies 1..2.17. Iberians may have come in with Moderatus of Gades (Cadiz),
a C2 AD Neopythagorean, unless they are the Black Sea Iberians of present-day
Georgia.

152 Latins: Numa king of Rome was by tradition a Pythagorean, but he ruled
715-672 BC. Cicero, On The Republic 258-9 knew that the date was impossible;
see RM.Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy 1-5 (1965) 88-91 for other claims to
Pythagorean tradition at Rome. Nigidiris Figulus, a Cl BC contemporary of

68

number, and however you split it up, the product of what is
taken away and what is left is the same. We must sacrifice to
Herakles on the eighth of the month because he was a seven-
months child.

(153) He also says one should go into the temple wearing a
clean white garment, in which one has not slept; sleep, black and
russet bear witness to idleness, but cleanliness bears witness to
fairness in reckoning and justice. If there is an involuntary loss
of blood in the temple, it would be purified by gold or seawater,
the most beautiful of things and the first of things, equally
balanced in honour. One must not give birth in a temple, for it is
not right that the soul’s divinity should be bound to the body in a
sacred place. (154) One should not have hair or nails trimmed at
a festival, because we should not advance our own interest by
neglecting the rule of the gods. Do not kill even a louse in the
temple: the divine being must not share in unnecessary and
destructive acts. The gods must be honoured with cedar, laurel.

Cicero, may have claimed local tradition, and the list at 267 includes four
Lucanians; cf.241. See further E.Rawson, Intellectual Life In the Late Republic
(1985) esp.30-3.

TViad: Aristotle On The Heaven 268a 10-15 says “As the Pythagoreans also say,
the all and the totality are defined by the number three, berause end and middle
and banning have the number of the all, and that is the number of the triad.
ITiat is why, having as it were received fiom nature her laws, we also use this
number in the rites of the gods”. For the importance of triads in I., see Wallis 130-
2. Aphrodite: 6=l+2+3=lx^3; that is, ax is the first “perfect number”, equal to
the sum of its divisors. 6=2x3, even x odd, so it has both aspects of number.
Aphrodite represents philia, love, whidi unites qsposites; hence she represents
the principle of unity, which is perfectiOTi. Further examples of numerology in
Delatte Litt parts 4-8.

Herakles: ^stotle fi'.203 (see KRS 331) cites a belief that 7 is the number of
kairos, right time (cf.l82). The usual myth is that Hera delayed the full-term
birth of Herakles so that his mortal kin Eurystheus, a seven-month child, should
appropriate Zeu^s blessing on the child to be bom. There was a widespread
belief that a child bom after seven months gestation would survive, but a child
bom at eight months would not.

153 Black hides dirt, russet hides bloodstains, which are polluting (R.Parker,
Miasma (1983) ch.4). So, traditionally, was birth (ib. ch.2;t here a theological
explanation is offered. “White” is supplied firom 100, cf.l55.

154 Cedar, cypress and myrtle are fragrant woods (cf.D6tienne GA ch.2

69

cypress, oak and ni 5 n-tle: do not scrape anything from the body or
clean the teeth with these, for this was the first generation of
moist nature, the nurse of the first more ordinary wood. He said
“Don’t grill what is stewed” (meaning that tenderness has no
need of blazing anger). He forbade the cremation of dead bodies,
following the magi, not wishing mortality to share in anything of
the divine. (155) He thought it holy to escort the dead in white
clothing, as an allusion to the primal simplicity of being which
accords with the number and origin of all things.

He said it was of the utmost importance not to be forsworn: the
future is far off, but nothing is far from the gods. It is much better to
be injured than to kill a human being (the matter will be judged in
Hades), taking into consideration the natures concerned with the
soul and its being, which is first of all that is. A coffin should not be
made of cypress-wood, either because the sceptre of Zeus is made of
cypress, or for some other secret reason. Libations should be made
before the meal to Saviour Zeus, Herakles and the Dioskouroi, with
h 3 nnns to Zeus the originator and ruler of nurture, Herakles the
power of nature, and the Dioskouroi the universal harmony.

on fragrances offered to the gods). Laurel is sacred to Apollo; Zeus’s
oracle at Dodona was a sacred oak, and his sceptre (155) was of cypress.
155 White is an image of the monad, or unity, which is the highest level
of being. Plurality, symbolised by varied or shifting colours, derives from
unity. The traditional mourning colour was black (cf.l53). Murder:
cf.l79, where the (easier) form of words is “taking in to account the
being of the soul, and the primaiy nature (physis) of the things that
are”. The things that (really) are (cf.l 59-60) are the Intelligibles, the
unchanging transcendent universals which are the objects of thought of
the divine Intelligence. Human souls, for I., are intermediate between
the Intelligence and the material world; with the gods’ help they can be
raised to contemplate the Intelligibles. (Wallis 119-20, Steel part I.)
Hence the human composite of soul and body must be respected.
Libations: as at 153, a theological gloss on the traditional practice.
Threefold libations were standard; the recipients varied with the
occasion. Herakles and the Dioskouroi (Castor and Pollux) are the most
famous examples of sons of Zeus who achieved divine status. The
Dioskouroi shared their immortality, alternating death and life
{Odyssey 11.301-4): for interpretations see Burkert LS 349-50, and on
Herakles JH 132-3.

70

(156) One should not make libations with closed eyes, for
nothing good deserves shame and modesty. When it thunders,
one should touch the earth, remembering the coming-to-be of
what there is. One should enter sacred places from the right and
leave them on the left, for he held the right to be the origin of
odd numbers, and divine, but the left to be the symbol of even
numbers which are divisible. This, then, is what is said of his
custom in the practice of piety; and since other aspects, which I
have omitted, may be deduced from what has been said, I leave
this topic.

29 The wisdom of Pythagoras: what it was, the kinds into
which he divided it, and how he achieved and transmitted
correctness and precision in all capacities for knowledge, from
the first to the ultimate.

(157) As for his wisdom, to put it simply, the sayings
recorded by the Pythagoreans may stand as the best evidence.
They contain the truth about everything; by comparison with all
other writings they are terse, but they are exceptional in their
antique patina, like a surface bloom which cannot be touched.
They have been composed with consummate and supernatural
knowledge, packed full of ideas, yet complex and varied in form
and material. They include nothing superfluous yet show no
deficiency in language: they are full to capacity of clear and
indisputable fact, presented with scientific demonstration and
(as the phrase is) complete deductive arguments. One need only
approach them by the proper route, not casually, carelessly, or for

156 Thunder: the weapon of Zeus, who (when envisaged as the One God)
is the originator of all there is. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics 94b33, says
Pythagoreans think thunder frightens the wicked souls in Tartarus; in
Plato Rep. 621 d a thunderstorm precedes the return to earth of
reincarnated souls. Odd and even: odd is divine because it is equated
with the principle of Limit, which delimits or defines all there is; even
numbers, being divisible, are not finite (see further Dillon MP3-5). The
Pythagorean “table of opposites” (Aristotle, Met. 986a22, translated
KRS 337-9) puts “right” on the same side as “odd” and “left” on the same
side as “even”.

71

form’s sake. These, then, convey the knowledge he handed down
from the beginning about the objects of thought and about the
gods.

(158) Next he explained the whole of physics; he perfected
both ethics and logic; he passed on all kinds of learning and
science. Everything which has become part of human knowledge
on any subject is fully dealt with in these writings. If it is
accepted that some of the writings now in circulation are by
Pythagoras, and some were composed from what he taught
(which is why those who wrote them did not claim authorship,
but ascribed them to Pythagoras, as being by him), it is evident
from all these that Pythagoras was exceptionally well-versed in
all kinds of wisdom.

They say he made a particular study of geometry. There are
many geometrical problems in Egypt, because from ancient times
(and indeed from the gods) their learned men have had to
measure all the land cultivated by the Egyptians, on account of
what the Nile adds and takes away. That is how geometry — the
measurement of land- got its name. But neither did they neglect
the study of the heavens, and in that too Pythagoras was expert.
It is thought that knowledge about lines derives from Egypt,
whereas calculation and number theory were invented by people
in Phoenicia, and astronomy some ascribe jointly to the
Egyptians and the Chaldaeans. (159) Pythagoras took over all
these traditions, advanced all the sciences, and demonstrated
them in clear and orderly exposition to his own students.

He was the first to use the word “philosophy”: he said it was
a desire or a kind of love, for wisdom, and wisdom was
knowledge of the truth which dwells in being. And being, as he
knew and said, is that which is immaterial, eternal, the only
active principles, namely the incorporeal. Other things which are
called “being” are given the same name only because they
participate in what really is: these are corporeal, material forms.

158- 9 Ethics, physics and logic: the standard divisions of Stoic
philosophy (DL 7.39).

159- 60: see 58-9n.

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which come into being and are destroyed, and never really are.
Wisdom is the knowledge of those things which exist in the strict
sense, not those which are given the name of “being”, for
corporeal things are not objects of knowledge: there is no secure
knowledge of them to be had, for they are not finite in number,
cannot be grasped by knowledge, and in a sense do not exist at
all, in that they are separate from universals and cannot be
precisely defined. (160) And it is not possible to conceive of a
knowledge of that which by nature is unknowable: so it is not
reasonable for there to be desire for a nonexistent knowledge,
but rather for knowledge of what genuinely exists and is always
the same, remaining unchanged, and always properly called
“being”. .And in fact understanding of these is followed by
understanding of what is called by the same name, although one
has not worked for it, just as knowledge of the part follows from
knowledge of the whole. “People who have an exact knowledge of
the whole,” says Archytas, “will see the parts correctly, as they
are.” That is why the things which exist are not isolated, unique,
simple, but are seen as complex and varied: both the incorporeal
objects of thought, which are called “being”, and the corporeal
things in the domain of perception, which share by participation
in really coming to be.

(161) Pythagoras handed down detailed knowledge of all
this, leaving nothing uninvestigated. He also gave humanity
general knowledge, such as demonstration, definition and
distinction, as may be seen from the Pythagorean records. His
practice was to use the very briefest speech to spark off in his
disciples, by the method of symbols, infinitely varied
interpretations; just as Apollo Pythios with a few easily handled
words, or nature herself with seeds which are small in size,
manifests an endless and almost inconceivable multitude of
ideas and their fruition.(162) One such is Pythagoras’ own
aphorism, “the beginning is half of all”. But not only in that half¬
line, but in others like it, the most divine Pythagoras hid the
sparks of truth for those able to kindle them; his brevity of

160 Archytas; see 127n.

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speech conceals a boundless treasury of knowledge, as in “all
things correspond to number” (the aphorism he repeated most
often to everyone), or “love is equality”, or in the word “cosmos”,
or indeed “philosophy”, or “being”, or the famous “tetract”. All
these, and many others, were conceived by Pythagoras as things
composed and formed for the benefit and amendment of those
who studied with him: those who understood them reverenced
them so highly, treating them as divine, that they became a form
of oath used by the disciples;

“No, by him who gave the Ifetract to our people,

the source which contains the springs of everlasting nature.”

This, then, was the remarkable nature of his wisdom.

(163) Of the kinds of knowledge, they say, the Pythagoreans
honour most music, medicine and divination. They are silent,
they listen, and the one who can hear is praised among them. In
medicine, their particular tradition is concern for dietetics, which
they have brought to a fine art. First they tried to learn the signs
of proportion in exertion, food, and rest, and they were almost
the first to concern themselves with regulating the preparation
of food. Pythagoreans made more use of fomentations than their
predecessors, and thought less highly of drugs; among these,
they made most use of those which treat ulcers. They rejected
surgery and cautery. (164) They also used incantations to treat
some illnesses, thinking that music too, if properly used, is of
great benefit to health; and they used selected readings from

162 Tfetract: see 82n.

163-4 Medicine: the tradition survives in alternatives to modem Western
medicine. Plato, Tlmaeus 89bd, says diseases have their natural course to
run, and drugs make matters worse. On surgery see L.Edelstein, The
Hippocratic Oath (1943), who argues that the Oath ascribes to Hippocrates
the principles of Pythagorean doctors: no surgical intervention (even for
gallstones), no abortion and no euthanasia. See further de Vogel ch. 10. 244
recapitulates 163, except in that the mss. reading is “proportion of, drinks
{poton) food and rest”; here it is “exertions iponon) food and rest” cf.
[Hippocrates] Regimen 1.2, and 208 below on the effect of what is consumed.
The mss. include chre (Greek “it is necessary”) before “fomentations”:
Deubner deletes it, Albrecht sees a corruption of chrismaton, “ointments” or
“oilings”. Homer and Hesiod: cf.lll, and 9n.

74

Homer and Hesiod to restore the soul.

They thought one should hold and keep safe in the memory
everything taught and said, and acquire learning and doctrines
to the limit of one’s capacity for learning and remembering: that
is knowing as one should and keeping knowledge where one
should. They set great store by memory, training it and
exercising it carefully, never leaving what was taught until they
had a firm grasp of what was first learnt, and recalling what was
said each day, in the following way.

(165) A P 3 d;hagorean did not get up until he had called to
mind all that had happened the previous day. This is how he
recalled it: he tried to recollect what he had first said, or heard,
or told the people in the house, when he got up, then what
second, and what third, and so for what followed. Then whom he
had met first, and whom next, when he went out, and what was
said first and second and third, and so for other matters. He
tried to recollect everything that had happened in the entire day,
endeavouring to recall it in sequence, as each happening had
occurred. If he could spare more time in getting up, he tried to
recollect in the same way the events of two days before. (166)
They made great efforts to train the memory, for nothing has
more effect on knowledge, experience and understanding than
the ability to remember.

These practices caused all Italy to be filled with
philosophers, and to be called Great Greece (though formerly
unknown) on account of Pythagoras. Many philosophers, poets
and legislators arose there. Rhetorical skills, set-piece speeches,
and written laws were taken from these men to Greece. Those
who have made some record of physics name first Empedokles
and Parmenides of Elea; those who want a pithy sajdng on life
quote Epicharmos — almost all philosophers know him by heart.

166 Great Greece (Magna Graecia) is attested from the C4 BC as the
name of (Greek) South Italy. For Empedokles see 64-7n. Parmenides
(KRS VIII) came from Elea in South Italy, mid C5 BC, and traditionally
had Pythagorean connections. Epicharmos was a Sicilian writer of
comedies, early C5 BC, who became a candidate for pseudepigrapha: the
fragments translated in Barnes 1.106-7 show why.

75

Let this, then, be my account of his wisdom, and how he
advanced all humanity a great distance on the path of wisdom,
insofar as each was capable of having a share in wisdom, and
how he handed down wisdom in its completeness.

30 On justice: how much Pythagoras contributed to its practice
among people; and how from its highest and loftiest forms to its
ultimate applications, he practised it and handed it on to everyone.

(167) Now concerning justice: we shall best understand his
own practice of it, and the tradition he left, if we grasp the origin
of justice and the causes from which it arises, and also the first
cause of injustice. Then we may discover how he warded off
injustice and made it possible for justice to thrive. The origin of
justice, then, is community feeling and fairness, for all to share
experience, approximating as closely as possible to one body and
one soul, and for everyone to say “mine” and “someone else’s”
about the same thing (just as Plato also testifies, having learnt it
from the Pythagoreans). (168) Pythagoras established this best
of all men, eradicating all selfishness of character and extending
the sense of community to the very last possessions, the things
which cause faction and disruption. Everything was in common
and the same for all: no-one had any private property. One who
liked community living used the common possessions in the most
just way; one who did not took back his own property, and more
than he had brought to the common store, and left. Thus he
established justice, in the best possible way, from its first
principle. Furthermore, fellow-feeling with other people brings
about justice, whereas alienation and contempt for fellow-
humans creates injustice. In his concern to instil this fellow-
feeling most deeply in people, he also established it towards the
creatures which are kin to us, telling us to think of them as
friends and kinsfolk, and not to harm or kill or eat any. (169)

167-8 The Plato reference is Republic 462b-e. “Fellow-feeling” (168)
translates oikeiosis, the Stoic technical term for awareness of something
as belonging to oneself: see S.G.Pembroke in Problems of Stoicism
ed.A.A.Long (1971).

76

Now if he made other animals kin to humans, because they are
made of the same elements as ourselves and share life with us,
how much more did he induce fellow-feeling for those who share
the same kind of soul and reasoning power! It is clear from this
that he brought about a justice which arose from the soundest
principle. And since many people have been driven to act
unjustly for lack of money, he provided for this too: his
management of the household provided for generous and just
expenditure in a manner appropriate to himself. In general, just
arrangements for the household are the foundation of good
government in the whole city, for cities are made up of
households.

(170) Pythagoras himself, they say, inherited the property of
Alkaios (who died after his embassy to Sparta) and was admired
no less for his household management than for his philosophy.
Having married, he brought up his daughter, who later married
Menon of Kroton, so that before her marriage she led the
choruses, and as a wife she was first to approach the altars. The
people of Metapontion, still keeping Pythagoras in remembrance
even after his times, made his house a shrine of Demeter, and its
entrance a shrine of the Muses.

(171) Arrogance, self-indulgence and contempt for law often
prompt injustice: Pythagoras said, therefore, that every day one
should assist the law and fight against lawlessness. That is also why
he drew up a list like this: what is called self-indulgence is the first
evil to shp into households and cities; second comes arrogance; third
comes ruin. So one must always avoid and fend off indulgence, and
be accustomed from birth to a temperate and virile way of life, and
keep oneself clean from evil speaking, insult, aggression, abuse, and
vulgar attempts to arouse laughter.

(172) He also founded another excellent kind of justice:
legislation, which enjoins what must be done and forbids what
must not. It is better than lawcourts, which, like a doctor, cure
the sick, for it prevents people getting sick in the first place, and

170 Muses, Demeter: see P.Boyanc6 fl.c.45n.), who notes the importance of
Demeter in South Italian cult. For P’s family members, see 146n.

77

makes provision from the outset for the health of the soul. That
is why the best legislators were students of Pythagoras: first
Charondas of Katana, then Zaleukos and Timaratos who wrote
laws for Lokroi, and Theaitetos and Helikaon and Aristokrates
and Phytios, who were the legislators for Rhegion. All these were
given honours equal to the gods by their fellow-citizens. (173)
They did not legislate as Herakleitos said he would for the
Ephesians, telling them to hang themselves in youth, but with
profound thought and political science. This is not surprising in
those who had been born and brought up as free men, but
Zalmoxis the Thracian, who became Pythagoras’ slave and
listened to all his words, was set free, went among the Getae and
made laws for them, just as I have described, and roused the
citizens to courage by convincing them that the soul is immortal.
Even today all the Galatians, and the Trallians, and most of the
barbarians teach their sons that the soul of the dead cannot be
destroyed, but survives, and that death is not to be feared, but
dangers must be faced with confidence. Having taught the Getae
this, and written the laws for them, he is the greatest of gods
among them.

(174) Pythagoras thought that the rule of the gods was yet
more conducive to the establishment of justice, and derived from
it society and laws, justice and just acts. It is worth setting out
his argument in detail. The Pythagoreans, learning from him,
thought it beneficial to believe that the divine power exists and
is disposed towards the human race so as to be concerned and
not to despise it. We need a government against which we shall
not see fit to rebel: divine government is such, for divinity is
worthy to rule over all there is. They say, correctly, that living
creatures are naturally aggressive, and experience a range of
impulses and desires and other states of emotion, so they need this
kind of control and threat to bring about moderation and order.

172 Legislators: see 130 and n.

173 Herakleitos fr.l21 DK. Zalmoxis: Herodotus 4.95; references to
further discussion in Vatai 144 n.82. The Galatians and the TYallians
lived to the north of I’s homeland.

78

(175) So each one, realising the complexity of his nature,
should never forget piety and worship of the divine, but should
always keep in mind that the god watches over human progress.
After the divine and spiritual power, they assigned the greatest
importance to parents and the law: one should be subject to
these not from conformity but from conviction. In general, they
thought one should hold anarchy to be the greatest evil, for
human beings cannot be saved if no-one is in control.(176) The
Pythagoreans thought it right to abide by ancestral customs and
conventions, even if they were rather worse than those of others:
it is neither beneficial nor safe lightly to desert the existing laws,
and adapt oneself to innovation.

Pythagoras did much else that was concerned with piety
towards the gods, showing his life to be in accord with his
teachings. It is worth mentioning one episode to illustrate the
rest: (177) I shall report what Pythagoras said and did in
response to the embassy which came from Sybaris to Kroton to
ask for the return of exiles. Some of his students had been killed
by those who had come as ambassadors: one was a murderer, the
other the son of one of the partisans, who had died of disease.
The people of Kroton were still uncertain how to handle the
matter. Pythagoras said to his disciples that he would not want
the Krotoniates to be quite out of harmony with him, and to drag
suppliants from the altars when he himself did not think victims
should be taken there. The Sybarites came and reproached him:
the murderer defended himself against the charges, but
Pythagoras said there was no response. That is why they accused
him of claiming to be Apollo — and also because of an earlier
occasion, when someone asked about some subject under
investigation “Why is this so?”, and he replied with another
question, “’Would you ask Apollo to give reasons for an oracle?”.

176 mss. have “a little (mikroi} worse”; Deubner has “much (makroi)
worse”, comparing DS 12.16.3 on the laws of Charondas.

177 cf.l33. DS 12.9.2ff, probably from the competent C4 BC historian
Ephoros, shows that these exiles were aristocrats; Telys, tyrant of
Sybaris, was supported by anti-aristocratic feeling. The episode occurred
C.510BC.

79

(178) The other man, thinking he was laughing to scorn the
lectures in which Pythagoras demonstrated that souls return to
earth, said that when Pythagoras was on his way to Hades he
would give him a letter to his father, and ask him to bring the
reply when he came back. But Pythagoras said he did not
propose to venture into the place of the impious, where, as he
well knew, murderers were punished. The ambassadors abused
him, so he went down to the sea and purified himself, followed by
a crowd. One of the Krotoniate councillors said, after denouncing
the other aims of the ambassadors, that they had also been mad
to cross Pythagoras: if we were back in the first age of which the
stories tell, when all living creatures spoke like humans, not
even an animal would have dared say a word against him.

(179) He found another way of turning people from injustice,
by the judgement of souls: he knew it to be a true story, and also
knew it to be useful for inspiring fear of injustice. He said it was
far better to be injured than to kill a human being (for the
judgement rests in the underworld), taking into account the
being of the soul and the primary nature of the things that are.
He wanted to show how justice, in the midst of unequal,
disproportionate and indefinite things, is defined, equal and
proportionate, and to suggest how it should be practised. So he
said justice was like the only geometrical figure which has an
unlimited number of combinations of lines; they are disparate in
relation to each other, but the demonstrations of the squares
remain equal.

(180) Now there is also a kind of justice in dealings with
others, and the Pythagoreans taught that too, in the following
way. There is, they said, a right way and a wrong way of talking
to people: it varies with age, status, kinship and favours done.

179 Socrates, in Plato’s Gorgias, uses the judgement in Hades as a
salutary but unprovable story; Pythagoras had been to see (DL 8.21). On
murder see 155n. For the geometrical analogy see 130-ln; the figure is,
again, a scalene right-angled triangle. “The demonstrations of the
squares remain equal” means, I think, that the squares are in the same
proportion to each other, whatever the length of the sides.

80

and with any other such difference between people. For instance,
there is a kind of conversation which is appropriate from one
young m£in to another, but not for one’s elders: not all kinds of
anger, menace or brashness are <out of place>, but any such
inappropriate conduct must be avoided by a younger man talking
to an older one. The same principle applies to status: (181) it is
not good or suitable behaviour to say what you like, or to behave
in any other of the ways just described, to a man who has a
deserved and distinguished reputation. Much the same was said
about conversation with parents or benefactors. Behaviour
suited to the occasion is varied and takes many forms. Of those
who get angry or indignant, when people have a desire or wish or
impulse for something, for some it is the right moment to follow
it and for others not. The same applies to other experiences, acts,
states of mind, conversations and encounters.

(182) The right moment can be taught, up to a point, is
amenable to rational principles and can be systematically
treated, but none of these applies to it overall and simply. “Due
season”, what is proper, what is fitting, and anything else of the
kind are consequent on the right moment and are in general
such as to belong with its nature. In everything the starting-
point is one of the most important matters: in knowledge, in
experience, in coming to be, and indeed in a household or a city
or an army or any such association. But in all these the nature of
the starting-point is hard to perceive or survey. In the sciences, it
takes an exceptional intellect to understand and correctly assess
the principle when one considers the parts of the subject-matter.
(183) But it makes a great difference — indeed, everything is at
risk — if the principle is not correctly grasped, for, to put it
plainly, if the true principle is not recognised, all that follows is
vitiated. And the same applies to government (the other arche):
neither in a household nor a city can life be properly lived, if
there is no genuine ruler who exercises freely-chosen

180 “out of place” is Deubner’s supplement; 181 confirms that anger etc.
are sometimes appropriate.

183 arche means both “beginning” and “rule” (cf.Latin principium): the
buck starts here.

81

government. Both ruler and ruled must want there to be
government, just as in learning, when it happens properly, both
teacher and pupil want it. If either party is reluctant, in these
situations, the task in hand cannot be properly fulfilled. So
Pythagoras approved of obedience to rulers and submission to
teachers, and gave impressive proof of this in action. (184) He
travelled from Italy to Delos to nurse Pherekydes of Syros, his
former teacher, who had fallen victim to the disease described as
phtheiriasis, and remained with him until his death, fulfilling all
the duties of piety towards his tutor: such was the value he set
on concern for one’s teacher.

(185) Pythagoras also trained his disciples in faithful
adherence to agreements. He did this so well that once, they say.
Lysis went to pray in the temple of Hera, and as he came out met
in the temple entrance Euryphamos of Syracuse, one of the
disciples, who was going in. Euryphamos said “Wait for me until
I have prayed too and come out”, so Lysis sat down on a stone
seat which was there. Euryphamos, having prayed, was engaged
in deep reflection, and came out by another door and went away,
forgetting him. Lysis waited almost without moving for the rest
of the day, all night and most of the next day, and might have
stayed there for longer if Euryphamos had not gone to the
auditorium the next day, heard the disciples asking for Lysis,
and remembered. He found Lysis still waiting, as was agreed,
and took him away, explaining the cause of his forgetfulness and
adding “Some god must have sent it upon me, as a test of your
steadfastness in keeping an agreement”.

(186) He required abstinence from living creatures for many
reasons, and especially because the practice makes for peace:
people who were accustomed to be disgusted by the killing of
animals, thinking it contrary to law and nature, found the killing

184 see 9n. Phtheiriasis (terminal infestation by lice) is unknown to
modem medicine: the best guess is scabies (caused by mites). See Ian
C.Beavis, Insects and Other Invertebrates in Classical Antiquity (1988)
116-8. The disease usually attacked those thought to deserve divine
punishment.

82

of a human being even more contrary to divine law, and ceased to
make war. And war finances and legislates for murders, for
deaths build up its strength. His saying “Do not step over the
yoke” is an exhortation to justice and an instruction to practise
all just actions, as will be shown in my discussion of symbols. So
through all these Pythagoras manifested great concern for
training in justice, and established a tradition of justice in words
and deeds alike.

31 How Pythagoras practised self-control and handed it on by
words and deeds and all kinds of achievement, and the varieties
of self-control he established among people.

(187) After the account of justice comes that of self-control,
and how Pythagoras practised it and handed it on to those who
make use of it. I have already mentioned his well-known
instructions on the subject, including the requirement to destroy
with fire and iron everything that is out of proportion. Of the
same kind are abstinence from all living things and from some
over-stimulating foodstuffs; the custom of serving delicious and
extravagant foods at banquets but sending them back to the
servants, because they had been set out only to chasten desires;
and the declaration that no free-born woman should wear gold,
but only prostitutes. The practice of alerting the reason and
purifying what obstructs it is of the same kind. (188) Then
“holding one’s peace” and outright silence work for the control of
the tongue, and all the following will be ranged in pursuit of the
same virtue: intense and unremitting pursuit and practice of the
most abstruse theoretical studies; abstinence from wine, and
frugality in food and sleep, to assist in this; spontaneous
rejection of fame and wealth and the like; sincere reverence for
those who have gone before, unfeigned goodwill and fellow-
feeling for one’s peers, and willing encouragement, without envy,
of those younger than oneself.

(189) We may see the self-control of the Pythagoreans, and

186 “My discussion of symbols”: in Protrepticus 21(p.ll4P).
188 almost verbatim 68-9 (and see 225-6).

83

the tradition Pythagoras gave them, from what Hippobotos and
Neanthes say about the Pythagoreans Myllias and Timycha.
Dionysios the tyrant, they say, found it impossible to achieve the
friendship of any Pythagorean, for they kept aloof from his
lawless and monarchical tendency. So he sent a troop of thirty
men, commanded by Eurymenes of Syracuse the brother of Dion,
to ambush them on their regular move from Taras to
Metapontion. (They adapted themselves to the changes of the
seasons, and chose places suited to them.) (190) Eurymenes set
his ambush in Phanai, a district of Taras which was full of
ravines, through which their route would have to pass. The
Pythagoreans, suspecting nothing, arrived about midday, and the
soldiers attacked them like brigands, shouting war-cries. They
were terrified by the suddenness and the scale of the attack (for
there were ten of them at most), and because they were unarmed
against men in full armour and were bound to be captured if
they fought it out, so they decided to save themselves by running
away. They did not think this alien to virtue, for they knew that
courage is the knowledge of what is to be avoided and what is to
be endured, as right reason suggests. (191) They were already
succeeding in this, because Eurymenes’ men were weighed down
by their armour and were left behind in the pursuit, but in their
flight they reached some level ground on which was a flourishing
bean-crop. Unwilling to transgress the commandment not to
touch beans, they stood their ground, and of necessity all fought
off their pursuers with stones and sticks and anything else to
hand, to such effect that some of them were killed and several
wounded. But all the Pythagoreans were killed by the spearmen;
not one was taken alive, but, following the commands of their
school, they chose death.

(192) Eurymenes and his men were extremely perturbed by the

189 Hippobotos was a doxographer, Neanthes a biographer,of the C3 BC;
both used by Apollonius, according to de Vogel appendix C (see
Introduction n.ll). Porphyry, Life o/"P.1-2, cites Neanthes on P.’s family
of birth: the stories differ from 1.4-9. Dionysius the tyrant was Dionysius
II of SjTacuse, nephew of Plato’s friend Dion: cf.233.

84

thought of bringing not one captive alive to Dionysios, who had
sent them for that specific purpose. They heaped earth on the
fallen, made them a common shrine, and turned back at once.
Then Myllias of Kroton and his wife Timycha of Lakedaimon
came to meet them. They had been left behind the others, for
Timycha was in the last month of pregnancy and therefore
walked slowly. So they captured these two and thankfully took
them to the tyrant, taking great care to keep them secure on the
way. (193) He asked all about what had happened, and seemed
greatly affected. “But you shall have the honour you deserve,” he
said, “above all others, if you will rule together with me.”
Myllias and Timycha refused all his promises. “Teach me one
thing,” he said, “and you shall go free with a suitable escort.”
Myllias asked what he was so eager to learn. “This,” said
Dionysios, “the reason why your companions chose to die rather
than tread on beans.” Myllias promptly replied “They were
prepared to die rather than tread on beans, and I would rather
tread on beans than tell you the reason”. (194) Dionysios was
astounded, and ordered that Myllias should be taken away and
Timycha be tortured. He thought that a woman, pregnant,
without her husband to support her, would readily speak out for
fear of torture. But she, noble woman, clamped her teeth on her
tongue, bit it off and spat it at the tyrant, demonstrating that
even if what was female in her was defeated by torture and
compelled to betray one of the things to be kept silent, she had
got rid of the part which would enable her to do so. Such was the
extent of their reluctance to agree to external friendships, even
with kings.

(195) The commands about silence are similar: they also
train in self-control, for the hardest kind of control is that of the
tongue. Persuading the Krotoniates to abstain from their
unhallowed and unlawful intercourse with concubines belongs to
the same virtue; so does correction by music, with which he
brought back to self-control the young man who had been driven
wild by love. And exhortation to avoid aggression relates to self-
control also.

85

(196) Pythagoras also handed on to his followers these
traditions, for which he himself was responsible. They try to
keep their bodies in the same condition, not skinny at one time
and fleshy at another, for that, they thought, was the proof of an
irregular life. Similarly, in mind, they aimed at a moderate and
consistent happiness, not full of gladness at one time and
downcast at another. They fended off anger, depression and
perturbation, and they had a precept that to sensible people
nothing in the human condition should be unexpected: they
should expect everything that was not within their own control.
But if anger or grief or anything else of that kind affected them,
they got rid of it: each, by himself, tried to digest and to cure his
emotion.

(197) It is also said that no Pythagorean ever punished a
slave, or rebuked a free man, in anger: he would wait for his
mind to recover its tone. (They called rebuking “tuning”.) The
waiting took place in silence and calm. Spintharos often told a
story about Archytas of Taras, who visited his farm after an
absence, on his return from his city’s campaign against the
Messapians, and found that the bailiff and the other slaves had
not been conscientious in farming, but quite exceptionally
negligent. He was as enraged and furious as he could be; and he
told them, it seems, that they were lucky he was angry with
them, for otherwise they would not have gone unscathed for so
great a fault. (198) He said there was a similar story told about
Kleinias, who also postponed all reprimands and punishments
until his mind had recovered its tone. They also avoided bursts of
pity, weeping and other such, and did not allow profit, desire,
anger, ambition or anything like that to be a cause of division: all
the Pythagoreans felt for each other as a good father would for
his children.

It is a fine thing that they ascribe and attribute everything to
Pythagoras, not seeking individual fame for their discoveries except
upon rare occasions. There are very few Pythagoreans whose

197 Spintharos was the father of Aristoxenos (see on 233). The
Messapians were a people of southern Italy. For Archytas, see 127n.

86

writings are known. (199) And their excellence in keeping secrets
also provokes admiration: in all those generations, no-one before
the time of Philolaos, it seems, ever came upon any Pythagorean
records. He was the first to publish the notorious “three books”,
which Dion of Syracuse is said to have bought, on Plato’s advice, for
one hundred minai, at a time when Philolaos was desperately poor.
Philolaos himself belonged to the Pythagorean fellowship, and that
was how he acquired the books.

(200) This, they say, is what Pythagoreans say about beliefs.
It is silly to adhere to any and every belief, especially if it is
widely held, for only a few are capable of having the right beliefs
and opinions: these, evidently, are the ones who know, and they
are few, so it is clear that this capacity cannot extend to the
many. It is also silly to despise every belief and opinion, for a
man with that attitude of mind will become incorrigibly
ignorant. One who lacks knowledge must learn what he does not
know, and one who is learning must adhere to the belief and
opinion of the one who does know and can teach; (201) and in
general, young people, to come through safely, must accept the
beliefs and opinions of older people who have lived good lives.

In human life as a whole there are distinct ages (as they put
it), and it takes someone of more than ordinary ability to link
them together; each one drives out the former, unless the person
is properly brought up from birth. So a boy’s education must be
good and temperate and courageous, including much to carry on
into young manhood; and the training of young men must be
good and courageous and temperate, including much to carry on
to manhood.

What happens to most people is absurd and ridiculous. (202)

199 cp.l58 and 226-7; cf.89 for publication motivated by poverty.
Philolaos (KRS XI, Barnes II.4) was the leading Pythagorean of the
later C5 BC; there is much dispute on whether any fragments are
authentic, and how far they influenced Aristotle’s account of
P}fthagoreanism (Philip 119-22). Burkert LS 223-4 suggests that the
story of the sale comes from a preface designed to authenticate the
“three books”.

87

As boys, they are expected to be disciplined and controlled, and
to keep away from anything vulgar or shameful, but when they
become young men most people let them do what they want.
Both kinds of fault generally come together at this age: young
men have many failings, both childish and adult. They avoid all
kinds of commitment and order, to put it plainly, and go after
fim, indiscipline and boyish aggression, and that is characteristic
of childhood: the childish disposition carries on into the next
period of life. But intense desires and ambitions and all other
such intransigent and disruptive impulses and dispositions reach
back from manhood into youth. So that time of life needs the
greatest care of all.

(203) In general, a human being should never be allowed to
do as he likes. There should always be a government, a lawful
and decorous authority, to which each citizen is subject. Any
animal, left to itself and disregarded, quickly lapses into vice.
The Pythagoreans often asked why we train children to take their
food in a proper, well-behaved fashion, and show them that order
and decorum are good things, and their opposites, disorder and
behaviour out of place, are disgraceful — and such are the drunkard
and the glutton, lying under heavy reproach. If none of this is useful
when we reach manhood, there is no point in training us like this
when we are children: and the same applies to other habits. (204)
We do not see this happening with the other creatures trained by
humans. Puppies and foals are trained to learn from the outset
what they will have to do when full-grown.

The Pythagoreans told their followers and associates that if
anything heeds caution, it is pleasure: no other experience has
more power to trip us up and land us in error. In general, it
seems, they exerted themselves never to do anything with
pleasure as an aim (since that aim is usually shameful and
harmful), but to act with an eye first to what is good and
honourable, second to what is advantageous and beneficial —
and that requires unusual judgement.

(205) As for what is called “physical desire”, this is what
they said. This desire is a movement of the soul: it is an impulse.

88

or reaching out, for some kind of filling up, or for the presence of
something experienced by the senses, or for a state of the senses.
(There is also desire for the opposites of these: for emptying
something out, for the absence of something, or for not being
aware of it.) It is a complex experience, perhaps the most varied
in the human condition. Most human desires are acquired and
fabricated by the humans themselves, which is why this
experience needs exceptional care, caution and strength. When
the body is empty, it is natural to desire food; conversely, when it
is full, it is natural to desire the appropriate emptying. But the
desire for unnecessary food; unnecessary and luxurious clothing
and bedding; unnecessary, expensive and luxurious housing, is
acquired. The same applies to tableware, drinking cups, waiters
and slaves who specialise in food. (206) In general, of all human
passions, this is the one which stops nowhere but goes on for
ever. So we must attend to those growing up from their earliest
youth, so that they will desire what they ought, and guard
against pointless and superfluous desires, being undisturbed and
pure from such longings, and despising those who deserve
contempt and are captives of desire. It is for the first importance
to detect pointless, harmful, superfluous and aggressive desires
when they occur in those who have resources to hand; there is
nothing so absurd that children, men and women of that kind
will not set their hearts on it.

(207) In general, the human race is extremely varied in the
range of its desires, and there is clear proof of this in the range of
what is on offer. There is an infinite variety of fruits and roots
which humans can eat; people also eat all kinds of meat, and it is
a hard task to find some land, air or water animal they do not
eat. And there are all kinds of techniques for preparing food and
compounding sauces. So it is not surprising that humankind is
diverse, not to say crazy, in the movement of the soul, for each
thing on offer causes its own peculiar state of mind. People take

205-7 The themes of I.’s treatment of pleasure may be followed in
J.M.Rist, Stoic Philosophy (1969) ch.3; The Greeks on Pleasure
ed.J.C.B.Gosling and C.C.W.Taylor (1982).

89

notice of what causes immediate and major alteration, like wine,
which when drunk in abundance makes people happier up to a
point, and then makes them wilder and worse behaved, but they
ignore what does not display such power. But everything
consumed causes its own state of mind. So it requires great
wisdom to understand how much food, and of what kind, one
should eat. This knowledge belongs originally to Apollo and
Paion, and next to the students of Asklepios.

(209) As for procreation, they have this to say. In general,
one should avoid precocious childbearing (neither plants nor
animals bear good fruit if “forced”): there must be a period of time
before fruiting, so that seeds and fruits may come from strong,
full-grown bodies. So boys and girls must be brought up with
suitable hard work, exercise and endurance, with food suited to a
hardworking, self-controlled, persevering way of life. Many
aspects of human existence are better learned late, and these
include sexual experience. (210) Boys should be brought up not to
look for sexual intercourse before the age of twenty, and when
they do reach that age their experiences should be few. This will
occur if good health is valued, for dissipation and good health
cannot coexist in the same person. The Pythagoreans approved
the traditional Greek custom of not being with a mother,
daughter or sister, either in a temple or in the open: it was, they
thought, a good and beneficial thing to create as many obstacles
as possible to that activity. They held, it seems, that one should
eliminate all unnatural and violent acts of begetting, leaving only,
among those which occur naturally and with moderation, those
intended for the chaste and lawful procreation of children.

208 Paion became a title of Apollo as healer. Asklepios was son of
Apollo; at his sanctuary on Kos, headquarters of the Hippocratic school,
patients received diagnosis and treatment in dreams; Julian, Against
The Galilaeans, presents him as a rival to Christ (JH 167-8). For diet
and medicine, see 163.

209-13 On Pythagorean sexual ethics, see Detienne GA ch.6. 210: “being
with” (Greek sungignesthai) can connote sexual intercourse, cf.78 on
avoidance of incest.“In a temple or in the open” probably means “outside
the house”: at home, there were witnesses

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(211) They held that those embarking on procreation should
take careful thought for their descendants. Their first and
greatest concern should be to come to procreation having
maintained, and still maintaining, a moderate and healthy
lifestyle; not unsuitably glutted with food, not having consumed
anything which worsens the state of the body, and least of all
drunk. They thought seed of poor quality was produced by a body
in poor condition, disturbed and discordant. (212) In general,
they thought it was the act of a thoroughly lazy and reckless
man, when intending to make a living being and to bring another
person into existence, not to take the greatest care that the
arrival in existence of those conceived should be as favourable as
possible. Dog-fanciers take the utmost care over breeding from
the right parents at the right time, when the parents are in the
proper condition, so that the puppies will be good-tempered. So
do bird-fanciers — (213) and obviously anyone concerned with
pedigree breeding in any species takes great care to prevent
breeding at random. But humans take no thought for their own
offspring: they beget them at random and by chance, on the spur
of the moment, then raise and educate them in the most casual
fashion. And this is the strongest and clearest reason for the poor
condition of most humans: most people procreate like the beasts
of the field, at random.

Such are the recommendations and practices of the
Pythagoreans concerning self-control: the precepts were handed
down like Delphic oracles from Pythagoras himself.

32 Pythagoras’ precepts on courage: his own methods of
training and noble actions, and those he caused his associates to
perform.

(214) As for courage, much of what has already been
mentioned is also bound up with courage: for instance, the
amazing deeds of Timycha and those who chose to die rather
than transgress Pythagoras’ command about beans, and other
such manifestations of courageous practice, including

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Pythagoras’ own noble actions. He travelled everywhere alone,
exposed to countless labours and perils; he chose to leave his
homeland and spend time abroad; he overthrew tyrannies and
brought order to cities in turmoil, giving them freedom in place
of slavery and putting a stop to lawlessness, removing aggression
and checking aggressive and tyrannical men, making himself a
gentle guide for just and civilized persons but expelling savage
and aggressive men from his company, declaring that there was
no response for these, working earnestly with the just but
opposing the unjust with all his might.

(215) There are many examples of his virtuous acts, on
many occasions, which could be cited, but the greatest is his
unshaken independence of speech and action towards Phalaris.
For when he was detained by Phalaris, the most savage of the
tyrants, he was visited by a wise man — Hyperborean by race
and Abaris by name — who came for the express purpose of
being with him. Abaris asked him questions on very sacred
matters, about cult-images and the most holy form of worship
and divine providence, and about those things which are in
heaven and those which range over the earth, and many other
such enquiries. (216) Pythagoras, characteristically, replied as

215-9 Phalaris, ruler of Akragas in Sicily c.570-50 (cf. lln. on chronology)
was the archetypal tyrant, alleged to roast victims alive in a bronze bull.
As often (cf. 130-1, 167-8, 205-7) I. uses technical terms from different
philosophical traditions, which he does not see as conflicting: these are
discussed by P. Boyance, REA 36(1934)321-52, who argues that this
section derives from a dialogue On Justice by Herakleides of Pontus, C4
BC; de Vogel, appendix D; and Pestugifere EPG 441-3, who thinks the
section was composed by I.. The phrase in 216 translated “the working of
the sacred things” (Greek energeia ton hieron) could allude to theurgy (see
138n), but could also refer to the effects of sacrifice or mean “the activity of
holy beings”. Similarly, the connection of heaven and earth at 217 could,
but need not, be Fs philia (see 68-70n). “The power of heaven” (218) as
mss (Greek tou ouranou); Deubner emends to “the power of the tyrant”
(tou turannou). Fate (219): heimarmene, that which is assigned;
Festugi^re EPG 409-12 on the history of the concept. I. says. On The
Mysteries 8.7-8, that the human soul has a lower part which depends on
the movements of the planetary universe (cf.29-30n and 68-70n), and a
higher part which, like the gods, can escape (cf JH 156-7).

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one inspired, utterly truthful and convincing, so that his hearers
were won over. Then Phalaris blazed out in anger against Abaris
for praising Pythagoras, raged at Pythagoras himself, and went
so far as to utter terrible blasphemies, typical of himself, against
the very gods. Abaris replied by acknowledging his gratitude to
Pythagoras: he learnt from him how everything is ordered and
managed from heaven; this is shown in many ways, but
especially by the working of the sacred things. He was far from
thinking Pythagoras a charlatan for teaching such things: he
regarded him with extreme awe, like a god. But Phalaris flatly
rejected divination and sacred rites. (217) Abaris shifted the
argument from these to what everyone can plainly see. He tried to
convince Phalaris, from the experience of divine help in events
beyond human control, like irresistible wars and incurable diseases
and crop-failures and epidemics and other painful and incurable
afflictions, that there is a divine providence which surpasses all
human expectation and power. Phalaris brazened it out.

Then Pythagoras, suspecting that Phalaris intended his
death but knowing that he was not fated to die at the hands of
Phalaris, spoke out with authority. Looking straight at Abaris,
he said there was a natural transition from heaven to what is in
the air and on the earth. (218) He set out for all to understand
how everything follows in the train of heaven, proved beyond
doubt that the soul has its own independent power, went on to
expound the perfect activity of reason and the mind, then,
speaking without constraint, demonstrated that tyranny and all
kinds of power that depend on chance, and also injustice and all
kinds of human greed, are wholly worthless. Then he gave an
inspired exhortation to the best way of life and vigorously
denounced its vicious opposite; revealed the true nature of the
soul, its powers and its passions; and, best of all, proved that the
gods are not responsible for evil: diseases and other bodily
afflictions are the offspring of bad conduct. He refuted the
mistakes of storytellers and poets. He also refuted the
arguments of Phalaris and gave him advice, showing him with
factual instances the character and extent of the power of

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heaven, and gave many examples of the reasonableness of lawful
punishment. He also clearly demonstrated the superiority of
humans to other animals, and gave a most expert account of
reason in thought and reason expressed, and a complete
exposition of mind and the knowledge which comes from it. (219)
Moreover, he gave many most useful ethical precepts, derived
from all this, on the good things in life, adding prohibitions of
what must not be done. Above all, he distinguished what is done
by fate from what is done by the mind, and said many wise
things about supernatural beings and the immortality of the
soul.

But that is another topic: I am concerned here with actions
relevant to courage. (220) If, in the midst of danger, he was seen
to philosophise with unshaken mind, defending himself in good
order and with resolution against fortune, and if he was seen to
speak with unchecked freedom to the very man who endangered
him, it is evident that he despised what is generally thought
terrible, holding such things to be of no importance. And if, in
the expectation of death (so far as mortals can tell), he
disregarded it entirely and gave no thought to what was then
expected, it is obvious that he was entirely without fear of death.

He did still more noble deeds by achieving the overthrow of
the tyranny, preventing the tyrant from inflicting intolerable
suffering on humanity, and freeing Sicily from its most savage
tyranny. (221) There is evidence in the oracles of Apollo that it
was he who achieved this. They declared that the rule of
Phalaris would be overthrown when its subjects were stronger
and more united — and that is what they became when
Pythagoras was there, through his advice and teaching. A yet
stronger proof is the date: on the very day that Phalaris
threatened Pythagoras and Abaris with death, he was himself
killed by the conspirators. The story of Epimenides may serve as
a further illustration. (222) Epimenides, a disciple of Pythagoras,
was about to be killed. He invoked the Erinyes and the gods of

222 Epimenides: references at 5-8n. The Erinyes (Furies) were invoked
by a curse on murderers or oath-breakers.

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vengeance, and made his attackers all turn their swords on one
another, to their utter destruction. Similarly Pythagoras,
defending humanity with the justice and courage of Herakles, for
the benefit of humanity punished and sent to his death the man
who had treated people with violence and injustice: this was in
accordance with the very oracles of Apollo, with which
Pythagoras was connected by nature from the very moment of
his birth.

I have thought it right to make this much record of
Pythagoras’ awe-inspiring act of courage. (223) Let us take as a
further illustration his preservation of lawful principle: he did
only what seemed right to him and was recommended by right
reason, and was not diverted by pleasure, effort, emotion or
danger. His companions chose to die rather than transgress any
of his commandments, and kept the same character free from
corruption in all manner of testing circumstances, never stra 5 dng
from their path despite countless misfortunes. They held
unfailingly to the principle “always help the law and fight
lawlessness”, and also to that of keeping self-indulgence at a
distance, accustoming themselves from birth to a disciplined and
courageous life.

(224) They had songs, too, composed for the emotions which
affect the soul: some very helpful against depression and mental
anguish, others for anger and indignation. With these they
tightened up or relaxed the state of the soul until they achieved
the proper tuning for courage. And they had a talisman for
nobility: their conviction that sensible people should not think
any aspect of the human condition unlikely to happen, but
should expect anything which is not within their control.

(225) If anger or grief or any such passion affected them, they
got rid of it: each one, by himself, would make a valiant attempt to
digest and cure his emotion. They vigorously engaged in the hard
work of learning and training, and in the tests for the self-
indulgence and greed which is innate in all of us, with the most
various chastisements and onslaughts “by fire and sword” carried

225-6: see 68-9 and 188

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out inexorably, sparing neither toil not perseverance. Valiantly they
abstained from all living creatures, and from some other foods, and
they worked at alerting the reasoning power and purifying it from
its obstructions, and at “holding their peace” and total silence,
practised over many years to achieve control of the tongue; all this
exercised their courage, as did their intense and unremitting
pursuit of the most abstruse theoretical studies, (226) and (for that
reason) abstinence from wine and frugality in food and sleep, and
their spontaneous detachment from fame and wealth and the like.
All these led them on to courage.

The Pythagoreans refrained from bursts of sympathy and
tears and everything like that, and also kept aloof from entreaties
and supphcations and all such slavish flattery, which they thought
low and unseemly. It also belongs to this aspect of character that
they all, at all times, kept the most important and essential of their
beliefs unspoken within themselves. They observed the most
careful “holding one’s peace” towards outsiders, keeping the
doctrines unpublished and unwritten in their memory, and
handing them on to their successors like the mysteries of the gods.
(227) So, for a long time, no important doctrines became public:
they were taught, learned and known only within the walls. If
outsiders — the profane, so to speak — were present, the
Pythagoreans spoke to each other in riddling symbols. Familiar
phrases still bear a trace of this; “don’t poke the fire with a knife”,
and other such, which as they stand sound like old wives’ sayings,
but when they are expounded offer wonderful and awe-inspiring
benefit to those who share them.

(228) But the greatest incitement to courage is to have the
highest of all aims: to save and free the mind from the powerful
bonds and fetters which constrain it from infancy. Without this, no-
one can learn anything sound or true, nor can he see clearly with any
kind of perception. According to the F^hagoreans, “mind sees and
hears all: the rest are dumb and blind”. Next to this is the earnest
desire, once one has been fully purified and variously trained in the
rites of learning, to pass on and impart some beneficial and spiritual

228 The quotation is from Epicharmos (fr.249 K): see 166n.

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good, not so as to take fright and give up when one moves away from
corporeal things, nor yet, when one is led towards the incorporeal, to
turn away one’s eyes dazzled by its brilliance, nor to be involved in
the emotions which nail the soul to the body, but to be undaunted by
all the emotions which are concerned with generation and which
debase. Training and progress in all these is practice of courage at its
highest. Let this much, then, stand as proofs of courage in
Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans.

33 On friendship: its quality and extent in Pythagoras himself,
how he manifested it to everyone, how many kinds of friendship
he established, and what the Pythagoreans did in accordance
with their practice.

(229) Pythagoras handed on the clearest of teachings on
friendship of all for all: friendship of gods for humans, through
piety and worship based on knowledge; friendship of one doctrine
for another, and in general of soul for body and the reasoning
part for the unreasoning, achieved through philosophy and the
contemplation it entails; friendship of people for one another:
fellow-citizens through a healthy respect for law, different
peoples through a proper understanding of nature, a man with
his wife and children and brothers and intimates through
unswerving partnership; in short, friendship of all for all,
including some of the non-rational animals through justice and
natural connection and association; even the mortal body’s
pacification and reconciliation of opposite powers hidden within
itself, through health and a lifestyle and practice of temperance
which promotes health, imitating the way in which the cosmic
elements flourish. (230) All these may be summed up in that one
word “friendship”, and Pythagoras is the acknowledged founding
father of it all. He handed on to his followers such a remarkable
tradition of friendship that even now people say of those who
show each other unusual goodwill “They belong to the
Pythagoreans”.

And we must add Pythagoras’ system of education, and the

229 almost verbatim 69.

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instructions he gave his disciples. The Pythagoreans ordained that
conflict and quarrelling should be abolished from true friendship:
from all friendship if possible, but at least from that for one’s father
and one’s elders, and likewise for one’s benefactors. If a fit of anger,
or some other passion, produces a lasting conflict or quarrel with
such people, it damages the existing bond of friendship. (231)
Irritation and exasperation should occur as little as possible in
friendship: this will come about if both parties know how to give
way and to control their tempers, but the younger, and one who
holds any of the offices mentioned, should particularly do so. Older
men should give younger ones correction and advice (they call it
“tuning”) only with the greatest tact and circumspection, and
affectionate concern should be very obvious in those giving the
advice: that way it will be suitable and beneficial. (232) One should
never break faith in a friendship, whether in jest or in earnest: it is
difficult to restore the bond to health once falsity has affected the
characters of the supposed friends. One should not renounce a
friendship because of misfortune, or any other life-event which
cannot be prevented: the only valid reason for renouncing a friend or
a fiiendship is great and incorrigible vice.

One should never deliberately take on enmity towards those
not wholly bad, but having done so one should persevere nobly in
the struggle, unless the character of the disagreement changes and
goodwill prevails. One should fight not with words but with actions.
An enemy is in accord with human and divine law if he fights as one
human being with another. So far as is possible, one should never be
the cause of a dispute, and should take all possible precautions
against its arising.

(233) In a friendship which is to be genuine, there must be
many restrictions and conventions, not arbitrary but carefully
judged and suited to the individual character, so that no
conversation should happen negligently and at random, but with
respect, careful thought and proper behaviour, and no passion - like
desire or anger - should be aroused by chance, or by low and immoral
behaviour. The same applies to other passions and states of mind.

230-2 almost verbatim 101-2

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One might guess, from the writings of Aristoxenos, that
their declining outside friendships was not merely incidental -
they were very resolute in fending them off - nor their keeping
their friendship for each other unbending for many generations.
Aristoxenos says, in his On the Pythagorean Life, that he heard
of it from Dionysios the tyrant of Sicily, when he had lost his
kingdom and was teaching at a school in Corinth. (234) This is
what Aristoxenos says.

“The Pythagoreans fend off bursts of sympathy and tears
and everything like that as far as possible, and the same applies
to flattery and entreaties and beseeching and anything else of
the kind. Dionysios, who was expelled from his tyranny and
came to Corinth, often told us about the Pythagoreans Phintias
and Damon. This was the story of how a man stood surety for
death; and this is how the surety came to be offered. Some of
Dionysios’ associates, he said, often mentioned the
Pythagoreans, but mocked and disparaged them: they called
them boasters, and said their famous dignity and their
pretended faithfulness and indifference to pain would soon be
knocked out of them if they were really frightened. (235) Others
disagreed, and a quarrel arose, so a plan was made against the
followers of Phintias.

Dionysios sent for Phintias, and said, in the presence of one
of his accusers, that he had been discovered conspiring with
others against him; those present bore witness, and showed most
convincing anger. Phintias was astonished at the charge. But
when Dionysios said outright that it was clearly proved, and
Phintias must die, Phintias said that if Dionysios had so
resolved, he asked for the rest of the day to settle his own affairs
and those of Damon. These men lived together and shared
everything, but Phintias, as the elder, had taken most of the

233 Aristoxenos was a musicologist (he analysed music by intervals of perceived
sound, not by Pythagorean ratios) who came fix>m Taras in South Italy. His
father knew the lyth^orean Archytas (see 127n) and he himself knew the last
generation of Italian Pythagoreans, and also Dionysius II of Syracuse. His
preference appears to have bron for an enlightened, intellectual P., who opposed
tyranny (see Vatai, 22-3, and C!ox 10-11). See also lOln.

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household cares on himself. So he asked to be released for that
purpose, naming Damon as his surety.

(236) Dionysios said he had been amazed, and had asked if
there was really a man who would stand surety for a death
penalty. Phintias said there was; Damon was sent for, and when
he heard what had happened said he would stand surety and
remain there until Phintias returned. Dionysios said he himself
was astonished, but the others, who had initiated the test, jeered
at Damon, saying he would be left in the lurch -and, they
mocked, a deer had been substituted for the victim. As the sun
was setting Phintias returned to die. Everyone was astounded
and subjected. Dionysios, he said, flung his arms around them
and kissed them and asked to make a third in their friendship,
but they would make no such agreement, despite his entreaties.
(237) Aristoxenos says he had this from Dionysios himself.

It is also said that Pythagoreans, even if they did not know
each other, would try to do acts of friendship for people they had
never set eyes on, when they had evidence of their sharing the
same beliefs. From such actions this principle too won credence:
good men are friends, though they live at opposite ends of the
earth, before they have met or spoken to each other.

A Pythagorean, they say, on a long and lonely journey,
stayed at an inn. From exhaustion, and for many other reasons,
he succumbed to a long and serious illness, and his resources
were used up. (238) But the innkeeper, whether from compassion
or from liking, supplied him with everything, grudging neither
service not expense. When the disease worsened, the man,
accepting death, wrote a secret sign on a writing-tablet, and told
the innkeeper that if his end came, he was to set up the tablet by
the road, and see if some passer-by would recognise the sign.
That person would repay what the innkeeper had spent on him,
and return the favour on his behalf. The innkeeper, after his
death, buried the body with all due care, but had no expectation
of getting back what he had spent, still less of benefitting from

236 Deer: as in some versions of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (another
innocent victim).

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someone who recognised the tablet. But, eager to try out the
instructions, he did regularly put the tablet out to be seen. Much
later, a Pythagorean was passing by. He stopped, realised who
had made the sign, found out what had happened, and paid the
innkeeper much more than he had spent.

(239) They say too that Kleinias of Taras, finding that
Proros of Gyrene, a disciple of Pythagoras, risked losing all his
property, got money together and sailed to Gyrene to put Proros’
affairs to rights, disregarding the diminution of his own property
and undaunted by the danger of the voyage. Thestor of
Poseidonia, having only heard it said that Thymarides of Paros
was a Pythagorean, did likewise: when it came about that
Thymarides was reduced from great affluence to poverty, Thestor
collected a large sum, sailed to Paros and restored his fortunes.

(240) These are excellent and appropriate instances of
friendship, but much more awe-inspiring were their accounts of
sharing divine goods, of concord in the mind, and of the divine
soul. They often urged each other not to tear apart the god
within them: for all this zeal for friendship, in act and word,
aimed at merging and uniting with the god, and at community of
mind and of the divine soul. No-one could find anything, whether
spoken in words or put into practice, which is better than this,
and I think all the goods of friendship are included within it.
Now we have summed up all the excellences of Pythagorean
friendship, and we say no more about it.

34 Miscellaneous sayings and actions of Pythagoras and his
followers in philosophy, not mentioned in the sections on
particular virtues.

(241) We have now discussed, in order and under separate
heads, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans: now let us have the
“miscellaneous ” examples, which do not fit our stated plan.

The Pythagoreans told all those Greeks who came to share
their fellowship to use their native speech: they disapproved of

241 Messapii (as in 197), Lucani and Peucetii were South Italian peoples,
absorbed into the Roman confederacy C3 BC. For Epicharmos see 166n.

101

speaking in foreign tongues. But foreigners also came to the
Pythagorean school, from the Messapians, Leukanians,
Peuketians and Romans. Metrodorus, brother of Thyrsos,
brought to medicine much of the teaching of his father
Epicharmos, and that of Pythagoras. In reporting his father’s
discourses to his brother, he says that Epicharmos, like
Pythagoras before him, thought the best form of speech, like the
best mode in music, was the Doric. Ionic and Aeolic had a tinge
of the chromatic, and Attic was saturated with it, (242) but Doric
was enharmonic, composed of notes which sound clearly. Both
antiquity and myth give their testimony for Doric. Nereus
married Doris daughter of Ocean, and to him was bom, so the
story goes, the fifty daughters, one of whom was mother to
Achilles. Some say Doros was the son of Deukalion son of
Prometheus and of Pyrrha daughter of Epimetheus; Doros’ son
was Hellen, and his son was Aiolos. But the sacred books of
Babylon say Hellen was the son of Zeus, and his sons were
Doros, Xuthos and Aiolos, and Hesiod himself followed this
indication. (243) Whichever is right — it is not easy for later
generations to get exact knowledge of antiquity — both versions
agfree in making Doric the oldest of the dialects; then Aeolic,
taking its name from Aiolos; third Attic, named from Atthis
daughter of Kranaos; fourth Ionic, named from Ion son of Xuthos
and of Kreousa daughter of Erechtheus, and dated three
generations after the earlier story of the Thracian wind and the
rape of Oreithyia, as most historians say. Orpheus, the oldest of
the poets, used Doric.

241-3 For the musical modes, see 115-21n. The antiquity of Doric: an
odd display of erudition. Nereus was the Old Man of the Sea; his
daughters the Nereids included Thetis, mother of Achilles. Deukalion
and Pyrrha were the parents of humanity after Zeus sent a great flood.
The Hesiod reference is fr.9 Merkelbach-West (Fragmenta Hesiodea,
1967). Kranaos was king of Athens at the time of the flood (which
should make his daughter Atthis the same generation as Doros in the
Deukalion version). Oreithyia, carried off by Boreas, was generally said
to be a daughter of Erechtheus, like Kreousa.

102

(244) In medicine, their particular tradition is concern for
dietetics, which they have brought to a fine art. First they tried
to learn the signs of proportion in food, drink and rest, and then
they were almost the first to concern themselves with regulating
the preparation of food. Pythagoreans made more use of
fomentations than their predecessors, and thought less highly of
the branch of medicine concerned with drugs; among these, they
made most use of those which treat ulcers, and absolutely
rejected surgery and cautery. They also used incantations to
treat some illnesses.

(245) They are said to deprecate those who peddle doctrines,
and open up souls, like the doors of a public house, to all who
come; and if they cannot find a buyer that way, foist themselves
on the cities, contract for all the gymnasia and the young men
together, and get paid for worthless material. But Pythagoras
concealed most of what he had to say, so that those who were
trained and purified could share with him, and the others, as
Homer says of Tantalos, suffer because the teachings are all
around, yet they cannot profit by them. They also say, I think,
about not teaching students for money, that those who do are
worse than ordinary craftsmen sitting at a bench. The craftsmen,
if someone commissions a herm, look for wood suited to the
carving of the figure; but the others try to construct the practice
of virtue from any nature which lies to hand. (246) They say one
should take more care over philosophy than over parents or
farming. Parents and farmers are the cause of our living, but
philosophers and teachers are the cause of our living well and
with intelligence, for they have discovered the proper
management of affairs.

Pythagoras did not see fit to speak or write so that his
thoughts should be apparent to any chance comer: the first thing
he taught his students was to be pure from all loss of control and
to guard in silence the words they heard. The first man to reveal
the nature of symmetry and asymmetry to those unworthy to

244 see 163-4n.

245Homer Odyssey 11.582-92.

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share the teachings was so much detested, they say, that not
only was he excluded from their common life and meals, but they
built him a tomb, as if their former companion had left human
life behind. (247) Some say the supernatural power took revenge
on those who published Pythagoras’ teachings. The man who
revealed the construction of the “twenty-angled shape” was
drowned at sea like a blasphemer. (He told how to make a
dodecahedron, one of the “five solid figures”, into a sphere.) Some
say this fate befell the man who told about irrationality and
incommensurability.

The entire Pythagorean training was distinctive and
symbolic, resembling riddles and puzzles, at least in its sayings,
because of its archaic style — just as the Delphic oracles, which
are really divine, seem obscure and hard to follow to those who
casually consult the oracle. That is a selection of the
miscellaneous stories about Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans.

35 The rising against the Pythagoreans, where Pythagoras was
at the time, and why tyrannical and guilty men attacked them.

(248) There were some who made war on the Pythagoreans
and rose against them. It is agreed by all that the plot occurred
in the absence of Pythagoras, but people differ about which
journey it was: some say he was visiting Pherekydes of Syros,
others that he had gone to Metapontion. Several reasons are

247 cf.88. The five geometrical solids are cube, pyramid, dodecahedron,
octahedron, icosahedron (Plato, Timaeus 53e5-55c6), identified with the
four elements and the aither which surrounds the earth (or, by Plato, with the
four elements and the “sphere of the all”, cf.88). Irrationality: the problem is
that the diagonal of a square is the hypotenuse of the right-angled triangle
formed by any two sides of the square. If the sides of the square are thought of
as 1, the square on the h 3 qx)tenuse is 1 squared -h 1 squared = 2 squared. So the
side of the square on the hypotenuse is the square root of 2: but there is no
rational number which can be multiplied by itself to make 2. It follows that the
diagonal of any square is irrational and incommensurable with the side of the
square (that is, it cannot be put into a ratio with the side). This sounds like a
disaster for Pythagorean insistence on all-goveming ratios, but there is no
consensus that Hippasos, or any other early Pythagorean, raised the problem.
See Philip app>endix 2.

104

given for the plot. One is that it was the work of the “Kylonians”,
as follows.

Kylon was a Krotoniate, and the leading citizen in birth,
fame and wealth; in other respects he was harsh, violent,
disruptive and tyrannical in character. He had been very anxious
to share the Pythagorean life and had applied to Pythagoras
himself, then an old man, but was turned down for the reasons
given. (249) Thereupon he and his friends began a vigorous fight
against Pythagoras and his companions. His self-esteem, like
that of his allies, was so violent and uncontrolled that he was
affronted by every single Pythagorean. That was why
Pythagoras went away to Metapontion, where, it is said, his life
ended. But the “Kylonians” continued their faction-fight against
the Pythagoreans, manifesting all kinds of hostility.

Pythagorean excellence, and the wish of the cities
themselves to be administered by them, prevailed for a time. But
finally the conspirators went so far that, when the Pythagoreans
were meeting in the house of Milon in Kroton, debating political

248-64 As usual, there are chronological problems about the revolt. It is quite
possible that two episodes are conflated, or several episodes exaggerated.The
historical bacliground is discussed by Vatai 53-9, with references to earlier
material: the evidence is generally shalQC Herodotus visited Thourioi (see 264)
in the 440s, but says nothing about these events. Polybius 2.39.1 describes the
revolt, because he is interested in mediation by his native Achaia, mother-city of
many South Italian colonies (263), but he does not date it: see FL.Walbank, A
Historical Commentary On Polybius I (1957) 222-5. The three versions I. gives
are by Aristoxenos (see 233n); Nicomachos of Gerasa (Jerash), a mathematical
philosopher of the C2 AD; and Apollonius of Tyana, the wonder-worker of the
C2 AD (see Introduction n.ll). If Aristoxenos (249-51) is right that Lysis
escaped the fire because he was young, and later taught Epaminondas of
Thebes (bom c.410 BC), the fire can scarcely be dated before c.450 BC.
Similarly, Echekrates (251), one of the “last generation”, appears in Rato’s
Phaedo, which has a dramatic date of 399 BC and a setting in Phlious (cf.251)
in Achaia, and also mentions Pythagoreans in Thebes. But a revolt over the
distribution of land conquered firom Sybaris (255, Apollonius’s version) should
be C.510 BC; at 74 Kylon is “exarch” (commander) of Sybaris. DL 8.39-40, and
Porphyry Life ofP. 56-7, dte versions (against 248) in which P. was not absent:
he escaped the fire, but died a voluntary death, or as a fugitive.

249 Milon won six Olympic victories in succession, from 532 BC on; like
Herakles, whose priest he was, a man of immense strength and
proverbial appetite — a most unlikely Pythagorean.

105

matters, they set fire to the house and burnt all the
Pythagoreans except two, Archippos and Lysis; they were the
youngest and strongest and somehow fought their way out. (250)
After this event the cities showed no concern for the atrocity, and
the Pythagoreans ended their supervision, for both reasons: the
disregard of the cities (which made no response to so extensive
and appalling a disaster), and the loss of those best suited to
govern. The two who survived both came from Taras. Archippos
returned there, but Lysis, offended by the cities’ neglect, left for
Greece and lived for a time in Achaia in the Peloponnese; then
he moved to Thebes, where there was enthusiasm, and where
Epaminondas became his pupil and called him father. There his
life ended. (251) The other Pythagoreans assembled at Rhegion
and lived there together. As time went on, and governments
worsened, they left Italy, except for Archytas of Taras. The most
committed were Phanton, Echekrates, Polymnastos and Diokles
of Phlious, and Xenophilos of Chalkis in Thrace. They
maintained the original customs and doctrines, though the
school was diminishing, until they died out with dignity.

This is what Aristoxenos says. Nicomachos agrees in most
respects, but says the conspiracy occurred when Pythagoras was
abroad: (252) he had travelled to Delos to nurse and care for his
former teacher Pherekydes of Syros, who had fallen ill of the
disease called phtheiriasis. Then those the Pythagoreans had
given up as hopeless, and exposed to ridicule, attacked them and
set them on fire everywhere- they were stoned to death by the
Italians for this, and cast out unburied. That is when the
knowledge was lost together with those who had it, for it had
been kept, unspoken, within their breasts until that time, and all
that outsiders could remember was hard to understand and
lacked explanation, with a very few exceptions preserved—like
sparks, faint and hard to catch-by people who had been abroad
at the time. (253) And these people, left solitary and deeply

251 The mss. have “left Italy, except for Archytas” after “the other Pythagoreans”:
this tiansp)osition, by E.Rohde (see von Fritz appendix A), not only makes better
sense, but allows for Archytas as governor of "Ihras in 362 (see 127n). Other
scholars have suspected lacunae (as in Deubner’s text, after “worsened”).

106

dejected by what had happened, dispersed and could not bear to
share their doctrine with any human being. They lived alone in
desert places found by chance, shutting themselves in, each one
best pleased with his own company. But, fearing that the name
of philosophy might be wholly lost to humanity, and that the
gods would hate them if they allowed so great a gift to be quite
destroyed, they composed brief, symbolic accounts, putting
together the writings of older men and what they themselves
remembered, and then each left this in the place where he
happened to die, charging sons or daughters or wives not to give
it to anyone outside the household. And the households kept
these writings safe for a very long time, each generation laying
the same charge on its descendants.

(254) Apollonius disagrees on some points, and adds much
that the others do not say, so let us also give his account of the
conspiracy against the Pythagoreans. He says that other people
were resentful of Pythagoras from their childhood. People liked
him when he talked to all comers, but when he associated only
with his disciples he lost their regard. They acquiesced in being
surpassed by an outsider, but they resented their countrymen
who seemed to have the advantage, and suspected that the
association was against their own interests. Then, since the
young men came from families distinguished for wealth and
reputation, as they grew older they took the lead not only in
their private lives, but in running the city; they had a powerful
group of supporters (they were more than three hundred) but
were a small part of the city, which was not governed by the
same customs and practices as they were.

(255) While they held their original territory, and
Pythagoras lived there, they kept the constitution dating from

253 “alone in desert places” does not occur in the parallel passage in Porphyiy,
Of P. 58, Jind may be another instance of rivaliy with Christian asceticism

(Burkert SD 13) which I. might have encountered in the Syrian desert. For the
importance of lonely places, see Porphyry, On Abstinence 1.36.1, and Fowden
56-9. DL 8.45 says the family traditions lasted 9-10 generations.

254 The mss. have “envy followed them”, i.e. people resented the
Pythagoreans, not (as Deubner) P..

107

the foundation, but people disliked it, and sought an occasion for
change. But when they defeated Sybaris, and Pythagoras left,
and they arranged that the captured territory should not be
divided into lots as the majority wished, the silent hatred broke
out, and the majority joined the opposition to the Pythagoreans.
The leaders of the opposition were those most closely linked to
the Pythagoreans by family and friendship, for they, like most
people, disliked much of what the Pythagoreans did, as being
peculiar and different from what others did; but they also felt most
strongly that the loss of privilege was an affront to them alone.

For instance, no Pythagorean ever named Pythagoras: when
they wanted to refer to him in his lifetime, they said “the godlike
one”, and after his death “that man”, as Homer makes Eumaios refer
to Odysseus:

“I cannot bring myself to name him stranger, though he is not
here: he loved me greatly and cared for me.”

(256) Likewise, Pythagoreans did not rise from their beds after
the sun rose, and would not wear a ring with an image of a god: they
would watch for sunrise to pray to the sun as it rose, and would not
wear such a ring lest it come into contact with a bier or with some
unclean place. They would do nothing without prior consideration
and later assessment: in the morning they would decide what was to
be done, and would reckon up into the night what action they had
taken, training memory and assessment together. Similarly, if one of
those who shared the way of life told another to meet him in a
particular place, he would wait there for him to come through day
and night. Pythagoreans were trained to remember what was said
and to say nothing at random; (257) they had their orders even to
death. He told them not to blaspheme at the last, but, as when
setting out to sea, to seek the omens in the silence they maintained
when crossing the Adriatic. Such things, as I said, annoyed everyone,
in as much as they saw the Pythagoreans behaving in their own way
among them, thoiogh they had been educated together. Then their
kinsfolk were even more angry and offended, because the
Pythagoreans gave the right hand only to Pythagoreans, not to any

255 Homer Odyssey 14.145-6.

108

other relation except to their parents, and because they treated their
property as common to Pythagoreans and alienated from their kin.
So when their kinsfolk started the disagreement, others readily
lapsed into hostility. Hippasos and Diodoros and Theages, members
of the Thousand, spoke in favour of everyone sharing in office and
in the assembly, and of office-holders rendering account to people
selected by lot from the whole citizen body. The Pythagoreans
Alkimachos, Deinarchos, Meton and Demokedes opposed this,
and resisted the destruction of the ancestral constitution: but
those who were advocates for the masses won. (258) After this
the people assembled, and Kylon and Ninon, sharing out the
speeches, were the speakers who denounced the Pythagoreans:
one from the rich and one from the popular party. Kylon’s speech
went on for a long time; then Ninon took the floor, claiming that
he had investigated Pythagorean secrets, though in fact he had
invented and written down what would most effectively damage
their reputation. He gave this book to the clerk, and told him to
read it out. (259) Its title was “Sacred Book”, but the contents
were of this kind:

“Reverence the friends like gods, but handle others like wild
beasts. The disciples say exactly this in verse, remembering
Pythagoras: ‘His companions he thought equal to the blessed
gods, the rest he left out of the reckoning’. (260) Praise Homer
especially for his saying “shepherd of the people”, for it is
oligarchic, showing the others to be cattle. Fight against beans,
for they are lords of the lot, and of putting into office those
chosen by lot. Seek for tyranny, for we argue that it is better to
be a bull for one day than a cow for all time. Approve the
customs of others, but tell them to use those we recognise.”

In all, Ninon argued that Pythagorean philosophy was a
conspiracy against the people, and urged his audience not even
to let them speak as advisers, remembering that they would

257 Seeking omens: see further Boyanc6 (45n.)140-4.Opponents: von Fritz 57
thinks Theages here = litates 263; others think there are two distinct phases of
conflict. Demokedes: see 261-2n.

259 The Sacred Book: see 90n.

109

never have come to the assembly at all had the Pythagoreans
persuaded the Thousand to ratify their advice. Those who had
been prevented from hearing others, while the Pythagoreans
were in power, should not allow Pythagoreans to speak. Their
right hands, which the Pythagoreans had rejected, should be
hostile to Pythagoreans when they voted by show of hands or
picked up a ballot. They should think it a disgrace for those who
overcame three hundred thousand people, by the Tetraeis river,
to be overpowered by a rival faction in their own city numbering
only a thousandth part of that.

(261) Ninon’s slanders made his audience so savage that a
few days later, when the Pythagoreans were sacrificing to the
Muses in a house beside the Pythion, they assembled in force, in
the mood to make an attack. The Pythagoreans saw it coming:
some took refuge in an inn, Demokedes and the ephebes
withdrew to Plateai. The people overthrew the laws and passed
resolutions in which they accused Demokedes of forming a
conspiracy of young men aiming at tyranny, and proclaimed a
reward of three talents for whoever killed him. There was a
battle, and Theages averted the danger from Demokedes, so they
assigned him the three talents from the city. (262) Things were
very bad in the city and the countryside, and the exiles issued a
challenge to a trial, with three cities-Taras, Metapontion and
Kaulonia-as arbitrators. Those sent to make a decision were
paid, and resolved (as was entered in Krotoniate records) to exile
the guilty men. Those victorious in the trial exiled in addition all
who were dissatisfied with the government, and also the families
of the exiles, asserting that one must not impiously divide
children from their parents. They also cancelled debts and
redistributed the land.

260 Herodotus, 5.44-5, mentions the battle but not the river Tetraeis.
261-2 Demokedes: perhaps the physician who worked for Polykrates of
Samos and Atossa queen of Persia (Herodotus 3.129-37) or a relative.
Ephebes: young men aged 18-20, often enrolled for military training or
frontier service. Minar (57-60, 81) argues that I. has left out material on
Pythagorean recovery after a first revolt.lt is not clear whether the
payment (262) was a bribe.

110

(263) Many years later, when the followers of Deinarchos
had died in another battle, and Litates, the most energetic leader
of the rebels, was dead too, there was a change of feeling and a
sense of compassion, and they decided to bring back the
surviving exiles. They sent for envoys from Achaia who came to
an agreement with the exiles on their behalf, and recorded the
oaths at Delphi. (264) There were about sixty Pythagoreans who
returned, not counting the older men; some of them had taken to
the medical profession, caring for the sick by a prescribed
regimen, and they became the leaders of the return. Those who
were restored were highly regarded by the ordinary people (it is
said that the proverb “These are not Ninon’s times”, applied to
those who break the law, arose at this time); and when the
Thourians invaded they came to the rescue, shared the danger
and died. Then the city reversed its views so completely that, as
well as the praises lavished on the Pythagoreans, they decided
that the festival would be more pleasing to the Muses if they
celebrated a public sacrifice at the Mouseion, which they had
earlier founded, on Pythagorean advice, to worship the
goddesses. So much, then, for the attack on the Pythagoreans.

36 The death of Pythagoras; his successors, and the names of
the men and women who followed his tradition in philosophy.

(265) It is agreed that Aristaios, son of Damophon of Kroton,
was Pythagoras’ heir in everything. He lived in Pythagoras’ own
time, about seven generations before Plato, and was found worthy
not only to lead the school, but to marry Theano and bring up the
children, because of his exceptional grasp of the teachings.
Pythagoras himself is said to have led the school for thirty-nine
years; he lived almost a hundred years in all, and Aristaios was very
old when he took over the school. The leader after him was
Mnesarchos son of Pythagoras, and he handed it on to Boulagoras,
in whose time Kroton was sacked. Gartydas of Kroton succeeded

263 Thourioi: a Panhellenic colony (i.e. settlers were invited from all
Greek cities) founded after the destruction of New Sybaris: see Walbank
(o.c. 248-64n) 225 for chronology.

Ill

him, having returned from abroad, where he had gone before the
war, but he died because of the sufferings of his country. He was the
only one who died of grief before his time;(266) other Pythagoreans
were very old when they were freed, so to speak, from the fetters of
the body. Later on Aresas came from the Leukanians, where friends
had kept him safe, to reestablish the school. Diodorus of Aspendos
came to him, and was accepted because of the lack of men in the
fellowship. He returned to Greece, and handed on the
Pythagorean sayings there. Committed Pythagoreans were
Kleinias and Philolaos at Herakleia, Theorides and Eurytos at
Metapontion, and Archytas at Taras. Epicharmos was also one of
the hearers from outside, but did not belong to the fellowship.
When he went to Syracuse he refrained from philosophising
openly, because of the tyranny of Hieron, but he versified
Pythagorean thought, conveying Pythagoras’ teachings under
the guise of amusement.

(267) It is only to be expected that many Pythagoreans are
unknown and unrecorded, but here are the names of those who
are known:

From Kroton: Hippostratos, Dymas, Aigon, Haimon, Syllos,
Kleosthenes, Agelas, Episylos, Phykiadas, Ekphantos, Timaios,
Bouthos, Eratos, Itanaios, Rhodippos, Bryas, Euandros, Myllias,
Antimedon, Ageas, Leophron, Agylos, Onatas, Hipposthenes,
Kleophron, Alkmaion, Damokles, Milon, Menon.

265 Diodoros of Aspendos (early C4 BC) had much in common with the
Cynic philosophers who believed in living according to nature (that is,
without the trappings of civilisation); the C4 comedy Pythagorean is of
this type. Sources in Burkert LS 202-4.

266 “Committed Pythagoreans”: Deubner (o.c.Introduction n. 14, 685)
has zelotas de graphein genesthai, which does not, I think, make sense
(cf.Burkert, Gnomon 37(1965)24-6). I have a omitted graphein, which
may be a mistake for graphex, “the source writes”. For the contrast
between zelotai and akroatai see 80n.

267 Many of these people are unknown, and others have very doubtful
Pythagorean connections. On the Pythagorean women see Sarah
B.Pomeroy, Women in Hellenistic Egypt (1984) 61-5 and Mary Ellen
Waithe (ed.) A History of Women Philosophers 1(1987) chs.1-4. Brontinos

112

From Metapontion: Brontinos, Parmiskos, Orestadas, Leon,
Damarmenos, Aineas, Cheilas, Melesias, Aristeas, Laphaon,
Euandios, Agesidamos, Xenokades, Euryphemos, Aristomenes,
Agesarchos, Alkias, Xenophantes, Thraseas, Eurytos, Epiphron,
Eiriskos, Megistias, Leokydes, Thrasymedes, Euphemos,
Prokles, Antimenes, Lakritos, Damotages, Pyrrhon, Rhexibios,
Alopekos, Astylos, Lakydas, Haniochos, Lakrates, Glykinos.

From Akragas: Empedocles.

From Elea: Parmenides.

From Taras: Philolaos, Eurytos, Archytas, Theodoras,
Aristippos, Lykon, Hestiaios, Polemarchos, Asteas, Kainias, Kleon,
Eurymedon, Arkeas, Kleinagoras, Archippos, Zopyros, Euth 5 iTios,
Dikaiarchos, Philonides, Phrontidas, Lysis, Lysibios, Deinokrates,
Echekrates, Paktion, Akousiladas, Ikkos, Peisikrates, Klearatos,
Leonteus, Pbrynicbos, Simichias, Aristokleidas, Kleinias,
Habroteles, Peisirrbodos, Bryas, Helandros, Archemachos,
Mimnomachos, Akmonidas, Dikas, Karopbantidas.

Prom Sybaris: Metopos, Hippasos, Proxenos, Euanor, Leanax,
Menestor, Diokles, Empedos, Timasios, Polemaios, Endios, lyrsenos.

From Carthage: Miltiades, Antbes, Hodios, Leokritos.

From Paros: Aietios, Pbainekles, Dexitheos, Alkimachos,
Deinarcbos, Meton, Timaios, Timesianax, Eumoiros, Thymaridas.

From Lokroi: Gyttios, Xenon, Philodamos, Euetes, Eudikos,
Stbenonidas, Sosistratos, Euthynous, Zaleukos, Timares.

From Posidonia: Athamas, Simos, Proxenos, Kranaos, Myes,
Batbylaos, Phaidon.

Leukanians: the brothers Okkelos and Okkilos, Aresandros,
Kerambos.

Dardanian: Malion.

Argives: Hippomedon, Timosthenes, Eueltbon,

Thrasydamos, Kriton, Polyktor.

Laconians: Autocbaridas, Kleanor, Eurykrates.

was credited with an Orphic poem. West 216; at 132 his wife is Deino,
here Theano. Ocellus: the pseudepigrapha include a treatise O n
Universal Nature, and correspondence with Plato and Archytas. See
R.Harder, Ocellus Lucanus (1926); H.Thesleff, Eranos 60(1962)8-36.

113

Hyperborean; Abaris.

From Rhegion: Aristeides, Demosthenes, Aristokrates,
Phytios, Helikaion, Mnesiboulos, Hipparchides, Euthosion,
Euthykles, Opsimos, Kalais, Selinountios.

From Syracuse: Leptines, Phintias, Damon.

From Samos; Melissos, Lakon, Archippos, Helorippos,
Heloris, Hippon.

From Kaulonia: Kallimbrotos, Dikon, Nastas, Drymon, Xeneas.

From Phlious; Diokles, Echekrates, Polymnastos, Phanton.

From Sikyon: Poliades, Demon, Stratios, Sosthenes.

From Gyrene: Proros, Melanippos, Aristangelos, Theodores.

From Kyzikos: Pythodoros, Hipposthenes, Boutheros,
Xenophilos.

From Katana: Charondas, Lysiades.

From Corinth: Chrysippos.

Etruscan; Nausithoos.

From Athens: Neokritos.

From Pontos: LjTamnos.

Total 218.

These are the most famous Pythagorean women; Timycha
wife of Myllias of Kroton, Philtys daughter of Theophris of
Kroton and sister of Byndakos, the sisters Okkelo and Ekkelo
from Leukania, Cheilonis daughter of Chilon the
Lacedaemonian, Kratesikleia of Laconia wife of Kleanor the
Lacedaemonian, Theano wife of Brontinos of Metapontion, Myia
wife of Milon of Kroton, Lasthenia of Arcadia, Habroteleia
daughter of Habroteles of Taras, Echekrateia of Phleious,
Tyrsenis of Sybaris, Peisirrode of Taras, Thedousa of Lakonia,
Boio of Argos, Babelyka of Argos, Kleaichma sister of
Autocharidas of Lakonia. Total 17.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and ABBREVIATIONS

This list includes only works of general relevance, not
books or articles cited in the Notes to clear up some specific
point.

lamblichus; de vita Pythagorica liber, ed. L.Deubner
(1937), rev. U.Klein (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1975)

lamblichos: Pythagoras, ed. and tr. M.von Albrecht
(Zurich: Artemis, 1963)

lamblichus: Protrepticus, ed. H.Pistelli (Stuttgart:
Teubner, 1888 repr.1967)

Jamblique: Les mysteres d’Egypte, ed. and tr. E.des
Places (Paris: Les belles lettres, 1966)

Jamblique: Protreptique, ed. and tr. E.des Places (Paris:
Les belles lettres, 1986)

Poiphyre: Vie de Pythagore; Lettre a Marcella, ed. and tr.
E.des Places (Paris: Les belles lettres, 1982).

Barnes Jonathan Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers (2 vols,
London: RKP 1979)

Burkert LS W.Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient
Pythagoreanism (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard UP, ET 1972)
Burkert SD W.Burkert, “Orphics and ^thagoreans”, in Jewish
and Christian Self-Definition HI ed. B.E.Meyer and E.P.Sanders
(London: SCM, 1982)

CH Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Mediaeval
Philosophy ed. A.H.Armstrong (Cambridge: UP, 1970)

Cox Patricia Cox, Biography in Late Antiquity: A Quest for The
Holy Man : (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1983)

Delatte Litt A.Delatte, Etudes sur la Litt4rature
Pythagoricienne (Paris 1915)

Delatte Pol A.Delatte, Essai sur la Politique Pythagoricienne
(Paris 1922)

Detienne Daimon M.Detienne, La Notion de Daimon dans le
Pythagorisme antique (Paris: University de Liege, 1963)
Detienne GA M.Detienne, The Gardens of Adonis (Sussex:
Harvester, ET 1977)

Dillon John Dillon, lamblichi Chalcidensis in Platonis Dialogos
Commentariorum Fragmenta (Leiden: Brill, 1973)

Dillon ANRW John Dillon, ANRW II.36.2 (1987) 862-909
(expanded version of introduction to Dillon above)

Dillon MP John Dillon, The Middle Platonists: A Study of
Platonism 80 BC to AD 220 (London: Duckworth 1977)

DL Diogenes Laertius, Lives Of The Philosophers tr. R.D.Hicks

115

(2 vols., Loeb Classical Library, 1925)

DS Diodorus Siculus tr. C.H.Oldfather (5 vols., Loeb Classical
Library 1936-7)

EH Entretiens sur Vantiquiti classique 21; De Jamblique a
Proclus ed.H.Dorrie (Fondation Hardt, Geneva 1975)

Eunapius Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists in
Philostratus and Eunapius tr. W.C.Wright (Loeb Classical
Library 1922)

Festugiere EPG A.J Festugifere, Etudes de Philosophie
Grecque (Paris 1971); 437-61 = “Sur une nouvelle edition du
De vita Pythagorica de Jamblique”, REG 50(1937)470-94.
Finamore J^n F.Finamore, lamblichus and the Theory of the
Vehicle of the Soul (California: Scholars Press, 1985)

Fowden Garth Fowden,‘The pagan Holy Man in late
antique society”, JHS 102(1982) 33-59

von Fritz Kurt von Fritz, Pythagorean Politics In Southern
Italy (New York: Columbia 1940)

Gersh Stephen Gersh, From lamblichus to EriugenaiLeiden-.
Brill, 1978)

Guthrie W.K.C.Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy
(Cambridge: UP, 1962)

JH Polimnia Athanassiadi-Fowden, Julian and Hellenism
(Oxford: UP, 1981)

KRS G.S.Kirk, J.E.Raven, M.Schofield, The Presocratic
Philosophers (Cambridge: UP, ed.2 1983)

Lamberton R. Lamberton, Homer The Theologian (Berkeley:
Univ. of California Press, 1986)

Larsen B.D.Larsen, Jamblique de Chalcis (Aarhus 1972)

Long AALong, Hellenistic Philosophy (London; Duckworth 1974)
Minar E.L.Minar,Eor^y Pythagorean Politics in Practice and
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O’Meara D.J.O’FlearaPythagoras Revived: Mathematics
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UP 1971)

INDEX OF PEOPLE AND PLACES
Numbers refer to paragraphs. The list in 267 is not
indexed.

Abaris 90-3,135-6,138,140-1,147, 215-7, 221

Achaia 250, 263

Aglaophamos 146

Akragas 33

Alkaios 170

Alkimachos 257

Alkmaion 104

Anaximander 11

Anchitos 113

Androkydes 145

Ankaios 3-4

Aphrodite 152

Apollo 5-8, 52,133,152,177, 208, 221
Genetor 25, 35

Hyperborean 30, 91,135-6,140
Paion 30, 208
Pythios 9, 30, 52,161
Apollonios 254
Arcadia 3
Archemoros 52
Archippos 249-50

Archytas 104,127,160,197, 251, 266

Aresas 266

Aristaios 104, 265

Aristeas 138

Aristokrates 130,172

Aristotle 31

Aristoxenos 233-4, 237, 251

Asklepios 126, 208

Athena 39, 42

Babylon 19

Bias 11

Bitale 146

Boulagoras 265

Brontinos 132

Bryson 104

Byblos 14

Calypso 57

Carmel 14-5

Carthage 128

Charondas 33,104,130,172

118

Chaldaeans 151,158
Chalkis 3, 8, 251
Corinth 233
Crete 25, 92
Cyrene 239
Damo 146
Damon 127, 234-6
Deinarchos 257, 263
Deino 132

Delos 25, 35,184, 252
Delphi 5, 56, 82, 263
Demeter 170
Demokedes 257, 261
Dike 46

Diodoros 257, 266

Diokles 251

Dion 189,199

Dionysios 189-94, 233-7

Dioskouroi 155

Diospolis 12

Dodona 56

Doros 242

Echekrates 251

Egypt 12-19,103,151,158

Eleusis 75,151

Empedokles 67,104,113,135-6,166
Epaminondas 250
Epicharmos 166, 241, 266
Epidauros 3

Epimenides 7, 104,135, 221-2
Eratokles 25
Eryxias 35
Eros 52

Etruria 127,142
Euboulos 127
Eudoxos 7
Euphorbos 63
Eurymenes 189-92
Euryphamos 185
Eurytos 104,139,148, 266
Galatians 173
Gartydas 265
Genetor see Apollo
Getae 173

119

Hades 123,155,178

Helikaon 130,172

Hephaistos 39

Hera 39, 50, 56, 61,63,185

Herakleitos 173

Herakles 40, 50,152,155, 222

Hesiod 111, 164

Himera 33

Hipparchos 75

Hippasos 81,88,104, 257

Hippobotos 189

Hippodamas 82

Hippomedon 87

Homer 11, 39, 63,113,164, 245, 255

Hyperboreans see Abaris; Apollo

Iberia 151

Imbros 151

Ion 243

Ionia 88

Italy 28, 33, 50, 52, 57, 88,129,133,134,166,184, 251

I^mbyses 19

Katana 33,130,172

Kaulonia 142, 262

Kelts 151

Kephallenia 3

Kleinias 127,198, 239, 266

Knossos 92

Kore 56

Kreophylos 9, 11

Kroton 29, 33, 36, 122,126,132-3,142-3,150,170,

177, 248-9, 265
Kylon 74, 248-58
Lakedaimon 92,141,193
Lakinios 50
Latins 152
Lemnos 151

Leukanians (Lucani) 241, 266

Leukippos 104

Libethra 146

Linus 139

Litates 263

Lokroi (Epizephyrii) 33,172
(Opuntian) 42
Lysis 75,104,185, 249-50

120

Melikertes 52
Memphis 12
Menon 170
Messapians 197, 241
Messene 127

Metapontion 81,134,136,142,170,189, 248, 262, 266

Melon 257

Metrodoros 241

Midas 143

Miletos 11

Miltiades 128

Milon 104, 249

Minos 27

Mnesarchos 4-9, 25,146, 265
Mochos 14

Muses 45, 50,170, 264

Mycenae 63

Myllias 143,189-94

Nausithoos 127

Neanthes 189

Nemea 52

Nessos 134

Nicomachos 251

Nile 158

Ninon 258-62

Odysseus 57, 255

Olympia 40, 44, 62

Orpheus 62,145-7,151, 243

Paian, Paion see Apollo

Pangaion 146

Panthoos 63

Parthenis 6

Parmenides 166

Paros 239

Patroklos 63

Perillos 74

Penelope 57

Peucetians 241

Phalaris 215-7, 221

Phanai 190

Phanton 251

Pherekydes 9,11,184, 248,252
Philolaos 104,139,148,199, 266
Phintias 127, 234-6

121

Phlious 251

Phoenicia 7,14,158

Phytios 130,172

Plato 70,127,131, 167,199, 265

Pluto 46, 123

Polykrates 11, 88

Polymnastos 251

Poseidonia 239

Posides 128

Priene 11

Proros 127, 239

Pythagoras the athlete 21 -5

P3d;hais 4-6

Pythias see Phintias

Rhegion 33,130,172, 251

Romans 241

Samos 3-4, 9-10,19-25, 26, 28, 30, 88
Samothrace 151

Sicily 33,129,133,134, 220, 233

Sidon 7, 13

Sirens 82

Sparta 25,170

Spintharos 197

Sybaris 33, 36, 74,133,142,177, 255
Syllos 150
Syracuse 266
Syria 5,14,16

Taras (Tarentum) 61,189, 250, 262, 266

Tauromenion 33,112,134,136

Telauges 146

Thales 11,14

Theages 257,261

Theaitetos 172

Theano 132,146, 265

Thebes 250

Themis 46

Theokles 130

Theorides 266

Thessaly 3

Thestor 239

Thourioi (Thurii) 264

Thrace 243, 251

Thymarides 104,145, 239

Timaratos 172

122

Timares 130

Timycha 189,192-4, 214

Trallians 173

Tyre 14

Xenokrates 7

Xenophilos 251

Zaleukos 33,104,130,172

Zalmoxis 104,173

Zeus 3, 27„ 46,155